Cosmic Order, Natural Law
by HandbagMurder
Summary: When Craig's father tells him to get a job over the summer, he doesn't have all that much choice but to take an available position at the locally owned coffee shop. Unfortunately, this summertime occupation coincides with numerous social and hormonal developments, and the ups and downs of a very, very strange teenaged boy. T, will become M in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Hi im maree and im cross posting some of my fics from AO3 to this site because tbh there just arent that many South Park writers on AO3 and thats a shame. **

**its been a long time since i used this site, so please bear with me if there are any formatting problems. **

**Please note that this fic will become M rated in later chapters. Also, it seems unnecessary to say, but ive noticed most of the stories on here have little warnings about how they are based on the intellectual property of other people, and that the writers make no profit from the publication of their fanworks. maybe then i should join in, and attest that literally nothing about south park or the copyright surrounding south park could be even sideways construed as my own. sometimes i think about the faces that the _actual_ creators would make if they could see what i produce based on their work. It brings me some amusement, and it brings me some shame. But i suppose this is the life i have chosen to lead. **

**and with that in mind, we begin. **

* * *

><p>It was a relatively regular Sunday afternoon. The sky was the colour of ashes and the gutters were clotted with the last of slushy spring snow. Each window along the street front glinted in the sun sleepily, and even though it was only just gone two pm the evening was setting in and preparing to linger. In the spring, the sunset lasted long after the occupants of SouthPark had shut their curtains and tuned in to the seven pm news, and even though it had stopped snowing it wasn't yet warm enough to turn down the heat pumps indoors. Craig Tucker, a reluctant morning person and full time hater of the cold, resisted the temptation to get out of bed all morning. It wasn't until he started seeing orange tones in the sunlight that crept under his bedroom curtains that he dragged himself out of bed and pulled a hat over rumpled black hair. His watch said 2.17pm, and he realised that he had already wasted in its entirety the best part of the day.<p>

He wasn't all that bothered. He made his way downstairs in the usual fashion, and found that beyond the slightly sweaty dimness of his bedroom the house was cosy. A great fortune, considering that despite the effort he had made to cover his head he wore no t-shirt or jumper or singlet top. His father and sister were in the kitchen, and his mother was most likely in the lounge watching TV. A normal Sunday afternoon. Nothing out of the ordinary was happening. And so he had no reason to be alert or uneasy as he approached the refrigerator and its contents. His breakfast prospects were slim, his mother wouldn't be going to the grocery store until tomorrow afternoon, but before he had time to bemoan this his sister was taking a great breath of air and turning to him, as though she had something of great unimportance to say.

"You're such an asshole Craig," she was standing at the bench making some kind of peanut butter and jelly abomination, and Craig eyed her knife warily wondering if she was going to plunge the sticky jelly covered blade back into the jar of peanut butter when she was finished with it. "I heard you playing your dumb computer games until five am! No wonder you sleep in until after lunch every day!"

"… Maybe I don't come downstairs until after lunch every day because I can't deal with looking at your face."

He took a can of diet coke out of the box in the vegetable crisper and pulled the tab. His sister's jaw dropped open like he had just punched her in the face.

"Craig, don't talk to your sister like that. Put some clothes on and sit down at the table, I want to have a serious discussion with you about something."

His dad put down the hefty car manual he had been reading and studied Craig coldly over his reading glasses.

Thomas Tucker was an intimidating looking man of astonishing height, and it was this height which Craig had reluctantly inherited at some point between nine and fifteen years of age. Craig might have been more respectful, even afraid, of him and his disapproving demeanour, if he hadn't proven himself time and time again to be all threats and rude gestures and no commitment whatsoever to disciplining his children. His bald spot had grown over the years, and his chin had tripled, but he still had sharp beady eyes and the clout of a person who knew that so long as their eldest son wanted to live under their roof, he would have to abide by their rules. Mostly, he served as a grim but comforting reminder that some day Craig would be fifty and unattractive too, with his own louty little brats and a morbidly pessimistic worldview which would enable him to enjoy his life more than anyone who had ever had the misfortune of having dreams or aspirations.

"Okay, cool." Craig shut the fridge door and shuffled over to the table. "What do you want?"

His father looked distastefully at the soda and at the bareness of Craig's chest and shoulders, but didn't say anything about how slobby it was to just walk around half dressed and drinking coke on a Sunday afternoon. Which was grand. Craig didn't really want to talk about it with him anyway.

"Your mother and I were talking about how you said you wanted a new computer for your birthday."

"Right."

"And we decided that we agree with you on the point that you are going to need an upgrade if you plan to go to college at the end of senior year."

Oh, thank Christ. Craig closed his eyes briefly and said a quick and grateful word to God. Not because he really believed in the God per se, but because he believed in giving credit where credit was due. There was no way in _hell_ that his father was the kind of person to just be generous just because of Craig's well thought out argument for his cause, and through the process of deduction it was clear some kind of divine intervention must have occurred. A modern miracle. It was about fucking time something good happened in his life, that's for sure.

"Oh. Okay."

"What?! If Craig gets a new computer _I _want a computer too!"

The knife clattered on the bench when his sister tossed it down, and her interjection was like nails scraping across the inside of Craig's skull. His father sighed and shook his head tiredly.

"Stay out of this."

"But I want-!"

"_Shush!_ I'm talking to your brother."

Craig tried not to be too amused when she stomped her foot and stormed off, abandoning her sandwich and most likely going to complain to their mother about how Craig was demanding more money from his tight fisted parents for things he didn't actually need. Like socks.

Thomas sighed and rubbed his temples in frustration.

"Goddamnit…"

"Dad, can we get back to the point? I kinda have plans this afternoon."

He didn't, but he wanted to reach some kind of an agreement as soon as possible. Just in case his dad changed his mind and they hadn't shook on it.

"Right. Right. No, like I was saying, you should get a new computer. But you know we can't really _afford_ one right now."

"Yeah we can." Craig's family had been stashing money for years. Ever since Craig was nine and his mother went out of work for sixteen months. Even after she found a part time cleaning job at Tom's Rhinoplasty the scrimping continued, and even though Craig knew they were more well off than some families in town, like the McCormicks or Leanne Cartman, he didn't really remember what it was like living in a household of luxury goods and recreational spending. "Just use some money from the savings account."

"… No. no we can't do that."

"How come?"

"_We can't do that_, son. Now can I finish?"

"Right. Right." Craig tightened his grip on his soda can in annoyance, and decided not to pursue it until he heard where the rest of this proposition was going. What had previously been relief that his parents had relented was beginning to morph into suspicion. He wasn't going to try and load Craig with a crappy second hand MacBook was he? Or worse, a desktop PC his place of employment didn't need any more. The thought of trying to run Skyrim on that kind of dinosaur machine made Craig's blood turn cold.

"We cant afford a new laptop right now, so what we decided was that seeing as summer starts on Monday, and you won't have anything much to do over the break, we want you to get a job."

Oh god.

Craig's face turned stony, and suddenly the rattling old Dell PC with Vista and Microsoft office 2003 pre-installed didn't seem so bad after all.

"You what?"

"A job. You know. Money in exchange for physical labour. Your mother and I will look at how much you earn at the end of the summer and if we think you tried hard enough, we are willing to pay the extra to buy you a new laptop."

Oh well why didn't he just get Craig to lie on the floor and shit all over his face?

Clearly, His father took the silence which followed this proposition as being ponderous, rather than furious to the furtherst limits of teenage rage, and the dining table chair creaked under his weight as he sat back and heaved a mighty sigh.

"You know I saw a help wanted sign in the window of Tweek Bros. Coffee the other day."

"_Tweek Bros.?_" that snapped Craig out of the cyclone of anger and shock faster than anything else might possibly have hoped to. "You know the people who run that place are insane, right?"

"Good God Craig, don't argue for once." his father gave him a dark look and folded his arms over his chest. "Isn't the son a friend of yours or something?"

"No! Fuck no!"

Craig hadn't spoken to Tweek Tweak of his own free will for at least four years. No one had. Maybe once they had gotten on pretty well once, maybe even been good friends, but it was inevitable that growing up meant letting go of some people and when middle school rolled around it was hardly a surprise that that one kind of quirky guy Craig had liked well enough in fourth grade became a total social pariah. He just turned plain weird. If anyone was to ask Craig (Not that they would) he would probably have to say that it was during the three month period in eighth grade that Tweek had been sent to a special school in Denver for the psychologically questionable. The nervous disposition which always kind of haunted Tweek really started to take root in his delicate psyche then, but mind, even before them being around him was difficult sometimes. He always seemed to look at people as though he didn't believe they were really real. Like he was expecting them to pull off their humanoid masks and leap at him with gnarly alien teeth and talons and assign him hundreds responsibilities Tweek just didn't want to take on. Like making a basic phone call, or ordering the beef noodle stir fry off the City Wok menu without flipping his shit entirely.

"Craig, you do as you're damn well told. If you don't get a job not only will you not get your laptop but we will send you to summer camp, and I can guarantee you that this time we will not drive across half the country to pick you up just because you got in a brawl with a goddamned counsellor."

Jesus Christ. Craig huffed and gritted his teeth, because that had only been _one time_ and he was beginning to suspect that actually, him being told to get a job had more to do with getting him out from under his parents feet all summer than getting a new computer. Because apparently he was just _such_ a challenge to deal with sometimes, this abnormally tall slightly pimply youth who lived almost exclusively on diet coke and pc games.

"Dad!"

"Don't argue! Don't argue or I will unplug the modem again."

Oh how Craig hated his parents sometimes. How much of that was genuine dislike and how much was just the vitriol of rebellious teendom it was hard to tell, but there was no denying that his dads passive aggressive approach to parenting really got Craig's goat. Not just sometimes. Always.

Craig made a rude gesture at his father across the table. His father made one back.

The next morning, he headed down to Tweek Bros. Coffee, his fingers crossed in the bottom of his pockets that by now, the sign would have come down.

…

The 'Help Wanted' notice in the window of Tweek Bros. Coffee was hand written in black ballpoint pent, and it was in a spindly angular style of hand Craig recognized as soon as he saw it because it was the exact same writing Tweek used to fill his exercise books with when they were still kind of friends. The sign didn't really say help wanted, it said _'assistance needed, Inquire within. Blood type O(RH-) need not apply'_, but that was probably some bizarre Tweekish way of saying 'work available' so it didn't really matter in the end. Craig wasn't particularly sure what his blood type was, but who cares? It was a coffee shop, not a goddamned hospital. He would just lie about it if he was asked.

He hoped he wouldn't be asked, because he was already pretty damn uncomfortable as he lingered in front of the shop and tried to look nonchalant, and if there was one way to make him absolutely certain he was going to regret this more than necessary it was bizarre and somewhat invasive inquiries along that vein. How many times do you use the bathroom every day? Is your second toe slightly longer than your first one? Have you ever woken up at four am because you can hear radio transmissions coming from the back of your braces?

Craig took a deep breath and checked his reflection in the front window of the store. He found the bright weather and made his hat and hoodie combo look slightly ridiculous, but otherwise he thought he didn't look too bad. Quite presentable. A regular looking teenager who was unusually dark considering both his parents were fair, and strangely slouched, as though his great height had always made him slightly unsure of how to direct his limbs. He certainly looked hireable though. And fairly clean even though he was only four months into his course of acne medication so his cheeks looked a little bit like the inflamed surface of the earth's moon and his hoodie hadn't been through the laundry in oh, maybe five weeks now? He made sure there was no one on the street to watch him do it and gave himself a quick sniff under the armpits. Axe roll on and cheep soap, same as usual.

And then he remembered he didn't actually really _want_ this job, and so looking hireable or tidy to the man who had insisted on brewing coffee with hard drugs in it for _twelve years_ until he was busted by the state police shouldn't actually be that high on his list of priorities.

It was easy to be distracted when pissed off and in a hurry to get this whole thing over with. Craig shook himself, made absolutely _certain_ no one was on the streets to see him ducking in to the Tweak family business at nine twenty on a Monday morning, and let himself pass through the door.

The shop smelled overpoweringly of grinds, and inside there were a few regulars at tables reading newspapers, but mostly all that could be heard was the sound of the machinery behind the counter running and the weird radio station Tweek listened to playing softly. It sounded like something out of a decade that never was. The faded unreal tunes that might have been if the cold war had turned hot and Tweek had been born in a corrugated iron bomb shelter and raised on radioactive water. Which actually he probably could have been. It was hard to tell. The décor had been redone since the drug bust incident, and after paying a hefty fine Mr Tweak had reopened with a new aesthetic. That aesthetic appeared to be 'mockbuster harbucks'. That is, he had pretty much ripped off every design aspect there was to rip off, but to a slightly lower quality to a borderline humorous effect.

It wasn't _that_ bad though. Anyone who hadn't been to an upscale coffee chain might have dismissed the glossy wooden counter and art neuvou ceiling lamps as the humble design efforts of small town USA. Maybe if Craig wasn't such an asshole it could have been cute. Maybe.

When Craig approached the counter, he didn't notice at first that the person leaning with bruised elbows on the till was the same person who sat in the back of chemistry muttering under his breath. If he had, maybe he wouldn't have walked all the way up there and craned his neck around, because until he was practically in the place he might stand to order he didn't even notice the slumped figure, or his milk splattered apron, or the way that his eyes were closed as if he was taking a desperately needed nap. Not being so close would have enabled him to leave if he suddenly changed his mind, but it was too late for that now.

Oh dear.

He thinned his lips and tried not to let his discomfort show on his face.

Tweek was the kind of person who would have been exceptionally attractive if he wasn't so anomalous, and for that, in some other lifetime, maybe Craig would have even been envious of him. If he didn't have shadows like half moons under his eyes, and lips which were always split or busted up from being punched a few times behind the bike sheds after school, his face would have been a model of non-threatening handsomeness. The kind of boy a thirty five year old woman would point out to a twelve year old daughter and say 'He's handsome, don't you think?'. The bruises on his arms seemed to be a side effect of the asprin he never stopped taking, and his doll blonde hair was always dishevelled because he had a terrible habit of running his fingers through it and pulling, and there was something horribly unnerving about seeing him with his eyes closed because usually he was so highly strung, so on edge, that Craig wondered if he could count on two hands the number of times he blinked every hour.

"Uh…" he coughed awkwardly, and wondered if he should give Tweek a poke to wake him up. "Hey. Are you like… asleep?"

He almost leapt backwards when one of Tweek's eyes suddenly flashed open, and he had big eyes like the full moon. A cold seafoam green.

"I don't sleep if I can help it." He muttered. "Whaddyou want?"

Oh. Well. Craig tried not too look too much like it bothered him, that Tweek didn't put any breaks on the creepy train for his first contribution to the conversation.

"… I saw the sign in the window so I thought I'd-"

"You haven't come to make fun of me have you?" Tweek opened his other eye and stood up straight, and he was almost as tall as Craig which was surprising. "You haven't spoken to me in years so sorry if I don't believe you. What do you _really _want?" he narrowed his eyes and put his hands flat on the counter. "Craig."

Wow. Okay. Craig was detecting some hostile vibes, and he didn't really know how to respond. He thought of what his dad would say, if he went home and said that the job had evaded him and that the guy who worked at the coffee shop freaked the shit out of him anyway.

_You never even tried_, would be the first thing that came out of his mouth. _You can't have even tried. It can't be that bad!_

He kept a firm grip on his wits and shook his head. "I'm just here for the job."

"No, no you're not. No one is ever here just for the job. Not really. What is this 'job' anyway?"

"Its… in the window? You wrote the fucking sign Tweek, I know you did I recognise your handwriting!"

Tweek looked seriously disturbed for a moment, as if he didn't like the fact that Craig could recognise his penmanship, and his hands clawed on the surface of the countertop. It was a spotless countertop, but there were scratches in it, most likely from the savagery of Tweek's severely bitten nails.

"Don't swear in the shop please."

"Uh… sorry?"

"You're not sorry not really I can tell." He turned away and started wringing his fingers. "Can I get you something to drink? We have black coffee or white coffee. That's with milk. If you aren't here on a dare you must want a drink…"

"No no. No, no. I _really_ am just here because I want a job. Just… seriously."

"Seriously?" Tweek looked over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes. "You seriously seriously just came in because you wanted to ask about the job?"

"_Yes_." He wanted to ask why the fuck would he come in here for any other reason, but he didsn't want to send Tweek into an erratic spiral of nonsense accusations. He seemed to have gotten worse since Craig had last talked to him. A lot worse. But at least he had stopped twitching so much. Maybe it was because his parents had him on enough medications to knock out a horse.

"…. Okay then. Here." He bent down and disappeared under the counter. His knees cracked loudly as he went, and Craig winced. "Fill out this form and bring it back." The form was slapped on the counter by a seemingly disconnected hand, and when Craig took it, a pen appeared in much the same fashion. "This had better not be a trick okay?"

"Yeah. Whatever."

Craig took the form, and sat down to fill the damn thing out. He tried very hard not to write too clearly.


	2. Chapter 2

Craig got up early again the next morning, his alarm starting at eight and not stopping until eight oh seven when he decided that he couldn't just ignore it any longer- he was going to have to get out of bed to turn it off. It didn't help that the noise had stirred Mojo and Donnie, and although they were appropriate and likeable replacements for long deceased Stripe they made a hell of a lot more noise than he _ever_ did. With a tired groan he heaved himself out of bed and pulled his hat on, pacing barefoot to his desk where his alarm clock and the guinea pig cage stood.

He shut off the clock and dropped into his desk chair, not caring that it was heaped with t-shirts and a pair of cargo pants he hadn't worn since Christmas when his grandmother gave them to him. He glanced outside, noticed that the sun was shining and it was probably going to be fairly warm, and decided at the back of his mind he would wear them. At least once in his life he should wear something that wasn't black skinny jeans.

"Oh my god shut up." He opened the cage and reached in to scratch his pets affectionately, and excited to see him looking through the bars they fell silent and scurried forward. Donnie was a fat little asshole, with a jet black coat and white on his crown. Mojo had long blonde hair that Craig had to comb out most evenings, to get the straw and knots out of it. He didn't mind doing it as much as he liked to say.

"It's not that exciting. Just the alarm. You know the alarm."

He didn't usually notice himself talking to the guinea pigs. It was one of those things which just kind of happened, and when he realised he was chatting to them as easily as he might have chatted to Token or Clyde he always ended up feeling self conscious and ridiculous. They were just pets. They didn't understand him. But he talked to them absent mindedly all through the process of dressing himself, tugging on the cargo shorts and a band t-shirt he found in his drawers that didn't smell _too_ bad. He hadn't listened to the Pixies in years. Hopefully no one would ask him about it.

He really needed to revamp his summer wardrobe. It would be a lot easier if he had money. He could get money too, if only he had a…

Ugh.

He caught himself halfway through ranting to his pets about applying for a job. After the appropriate thirty seconds of awkward rambling had passed ('_oh my god what am I doing you guys don't care you can't even know what I'm talking about_') he descended the stairs. His parents were in the kitchen, and so was his sister. She looked like she had just gotten out of bed.

"Your alarm woke me up again!" She told him.

"Good."

Craig made a beeline for the fridge, and his morning can of diet soda.

His dad dropped him at the mall on his way to work, and they exchanged no more words than it took to say 'By the way, I went to Tweek Bros yesterday and filled out an application form', which was to be expected, but Craig would have appreciated a word of congratulations or a ten dollar note reward.

"Good. Let me know when they get back to you."

And then his dad drove off and left him alone by the entrance to the car park. It was only nine twenty two am. His friends weren't meeting him until ten.

He sat on the sidewalk and threw little chips of road gravel down the gutters. Hopefully, someone would come by early and distract him, from all the thoughts about jobs and finances spiralling around hopelessly in his head.

…

"No way dude! That totally sucks!"

"Yeah it does."

Craig sat quietly next to Token at the food court table, divulging information about parental pressures to gain employment only when Token asked him why he looked so fucked off today. He neglected to mention that he had already applied for at least one position, because telling him or any of his friends exactly _where_ he had applied would be an effective way of reducing him to a utter laughing stock, and instead he just left it at 'My olds are making me get a job.'

Of course, that made everybody sit up and tune in. Mostly because none of them had jobs, and had never even considered trying to get one.

Craig's friends weren't exactly the most motivated group of class acts who ever lived. They weren't like Stan Marsh, who had gotten a job working at the animal shelter in twelfth grade, or Kyle Broflovski who earned ten dollars an hour working at the bookstore in the mall. They were the slightly more low-budget versions of that particular clique of socialites, and with the exception of Token (Who was associated with Craig's group through choice rather than the prescriptions of popular opinion,) that was probably the way things had always been. It had just become more obvious when they went to high school and Stan and Kyle got to sit with the cheerleaders and the student executive committee. Even Eric Cartman had managed to make it in there somehow, and that bothered Craig to no end but it wasn't like he could actually ever _do_ anything about it. He didn't like complaining about persons higher than him on the social ladder because they were actually (excluding Cartman) pretty decent guys, and doing so made him look like a bitter little baby.

Which he was, but like fuck he was ever going to admit that at all.

"Blow or hand?"

Kenny McCormick raised his eyebrows and looked up from the napkin he was folding into an origami crane on the table. He had started hanging around with them around middle school, not because he ever stopped being friends with Stan and Kyle but because he decided the chances of getting any good T&A out o the girls those two hung out with were slim to none. It was a gross reason to jump ship on lifelong mates, and in honesty he was lucky that he was an extremely likeable sort of a guy (bizarre sexual idiosyncrasies not-withstanding) because anyone else probably wouldn't have been able to get away with it. Craig especially, who was not much of a people person at the best of times, knew that Kenny had a rough edged charm. A lot of it. Too much even. And it gave Craig a lot of grief but he preferred not to think about _that_ particular matter most of the time.

He tensed his jaw and sighed as though the question pained him to answer.

"Fuck off Kenny."

Kenny laughed, and Clyde who for some ungodly reason always encouraged him, smirked like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard in his life. Fucking Clyde.

Craig realised then, quite arbitrarily, that he didn't actually like his friends all that much.

How grim.

"Anyways. That means I might not be able to hang out so much over summer."

"That's okay, we all have stuff to do ourselves. I think my family is going to France again."

Token jiggled the straw in his banana berry smoothie and everyone at the table rolled their eyes.

"He's lying." Kenny leant on the table with his elbows, and Craig saw Clyde shifting uncomfortably out of the corner of his eye. "Not about France, but about the rest of us doing shit. Not everyone can afford to go to _France_."

"Speak for yourself. I have stuff I could be doing."

"Shut up Clyde." The older Clyde got, and the more he tried to pass himself off as a ladies man and general jock, the less tolerance Craig had for the sound of his gormless voice. "You killed your mom."

"Harsh dude." Token scrunched his face when Clyde's fell. Kenny blew a soft huff of air out his nose and resumed his napkin folding.

"Whatever."

This day wasn't going too well. Not worth getting up before midday for anyway. The mall was nothing special, but he had an unfortunate tendency to forget this when he lay in his bedroom alone and bored stupid, and the idea of what a mall should be, what it represents rather than the actuality of the fact, rose almost mystically to the surface of his mind. The people, with their private business and bratty little children in tow. The fluorescent lights which glowed white and illuminated corridors enlivened by plastic bushes in planter boxes. Ah yes, the mall. An excellent place to be if you have money. Or failing that, an erection with a decent attention span. There was no denying that as far as places to find fresh female attention go, the food court at the South Park mall complex was the be all and end all. Unfortunately for Craig, he had already developed a system appropriate to dealing with his dick, and that system did not include gambling with his pride in an effort to secure a date and a blow for that weekend coming.

He barely even noticed the girls who came and went here, most of them from the all girls high school just outside the East Park city limits. But again, this was something he always forgot- they seemed so promising in theory but to actually see them milling around Sephora or the apple store? Meh. He just couldn't be bothered.

He pulled his cellphone out of his jeans, found he had no messages (unsurprising) and tried to change the subject.

"Hey Token, are you still seeing Bebe?"

"No, we broke up like… three months ago? Great paying attention."

"Oh. Sorry."

Craig hadn't been paying attention because Craig didn't particularly care. The complications of romance were something he neither understood nor cared to understand, and of all the persons in their group Kenny was probably the one who had the best ideas about engaging with the opposite sex. Frankly, it was difficult for Craig to imagine a fulfilling emotional engagement with a girl. Frankly, it was all too easy to poke the remains of his nachos around the plate in front of him and know that later that night he would go home and watch a video with a title like 'Backdoor bi-fuck' or 'Horny college grad gets slammed by hung jock' with a clear conscience because at least he wasn't failing time and time again to find gratification in faking a romantic attraction.

Token must have made his way through most of the girls in their grade by now, with no more success than Craig when it came to getting with the love of his life, and Craig thought that perhaps there was some benefit in being physically plain. It meant that usually girls didn't bother paying him that much attention, and that he was free to alternate between masturbating and thinking private thoughts about certain people he would _consider_ having an emotional relationship with, but not sacrifice any effort to attain.

Which made the thing Clyde said next particularly startling.

"Oh yeah that reminds me. Bebe asked me for your cellphone number the other day." He furrowed his brow and looked at Craig as though this fact was bothering him slightly. "Craig I mean."

"… Me?" Craig would have raised his eyebrows, if having a deadpan expression at all times wasn't pretty much his only modus operandi. Token choked on his milkshake, and Kenny sighed.

"What are you doing texting Bebe?!" Token demanded, and Craig observed that apparently he was still a little sore from their breakup.

"Yeah Clyde. Still haven't let it go?" Kenny, meanwhile, had been teasing Clyde for his obsession with their classmate for the last eight months. His comment made Clyde flush, but he declined to react just in case it made Token angrier than he already was. Craig didn't know why he looked so goddamned pissed, considering he had probably been the one who dumped her ass in the first place. That was usually how Tokens relationships played out.

"Yeah. You. That's what I said too."

"Well did you give it to her?"

"No. I told her I'd ask you first."

"… Yeah. Good."

God, what on earth did a girl like _Bebe_ want with him? Bebe Stevens was easily the queen bitch of the sophomore scene last year. Smart and pretty, voted most likely to marry Kyle Broflovski and become one half of the next power couple USA, Craig couldn't even remember the last time the two of them had even had a conversation and honestly that was the way he preferred it. Girls like her made him feel cold and subject to harsh judgement. He tried not to be around them mostly out of self defence, and he couldn't help it that in those unfortunate moments he failed he always came off as a jerk when he talked to them. He never had any hope of being what they wanted him to, and so it was better he figured to simply steer clear and look disinterested. And even though he could feel colour rising at the back of his neck just _thinking _about the way Bebe's breasts looked in the pretty red cardigans she always wore, and even though he couldn't help but wonder if it was finally his turn to ride those thick girly thighs, he maintained this as best he could when he said 'Don't give it to her."

Kenny thumped him hard on the shoulder and hissed.

"Dude! What?!"

"What what? Why would I want Bebe to have my number?"

Kenny looked at him like he was completely insane. At least, that's what Craig thought. It was hard to tell because even three parkas on from his original egg yolk orange ensemble he still insisted on wearing his hood up indoors on a summer day. Sometimes, it was possible to believe that he was nothing more than a pair of almond shaped blue eyes and freckles.

"Because she'll _fuck you_."

"No she wont!" This conversation really seemed to be working Token up. "And take off your hood by the way. You're embarrassing to be with sometimes."

Without missing a beat Kenny threw his hood back, and a finely featured blonde boy became fully realised in front of them. His enthusiasm for the topic was evident in the way he spoke with his entire face, and it was a nice face to look at. Better than Craig's or Clyde's by fair. Craig looked down at his plate of leftovers and grit his teeth together tightly.

"Shut up Token. She _will_. Cartman said Bebe likes to fuck, and anyone willing to let that fat lump of shit put it in her must be game for anything. You're a shoe in."

"Shut _up_ Kenny."

"Yeah Kenny, shut up."

He must have been hitting more than a few nerves to have Token and Clyde ganging up on him, considering the two of them rarely agreed on anything at all.

"Guys, maybe we should stop talking about this." Craig sat up straight and pushed his shoulder back. His neck clicked loudly, and that made Kenny screw up his nose in discomfort. The guy had a problem with abnormal bodily noises. Why that was, Craig couldn't even begin to guess.

"… Don't do that."

"Right. Sorry."

Clyde narrowed his eyes at Kenny across the table. Token scowled, and returned his attention to his beverage.

…

It was two more days of sleeping late and masturbation before Craig heard back from the proprietors at Tweek Bros. Coffee shop, and for a few glorious hours the evening before he had thought he was off the hook entirely. His father hadn't asked him about his application progress, and there had been no missed messages or calls to his cell phone when he woke up at some time in the early afternoon. Mister Tweak didn't want him, his summer spent moping around his bedroom playing crappy computer games was secure and all in all things were looking so much better than they had that morning at the mall two days previously.

Of course, being called up at eleven forty eight pm Thursday put a damper on his mood and his game of SimTower, ad he answered his phone with a burning impatience, not even looking away from his laptop to check the ID for who was calling.

"What? You know its like, midnight, right?"

And for a few seconds after he answered, there was nothing but silence on the other end of the line.

"… Its me," The person said, and Craig's eyebrows scrunched because how the hell should he know who 'Me' is? Was it Kenny? The voice was too fragile for Kenny, all glassy and kind of tense. It definitely wasn't Clyde, and it sure as _hell_ wasn't any female voice he had ever heard in his life. So at least he knew that so far Clyde hadn't given Bebe his number.

"Okay. So what do you want?"

"Well, dad asked me to call you and ask if you wanted to come in tomorrow morning some time and start a shift. I should have called earlier but I wasn't sure if you gave me the right number or if I was just going to end up calling Eric Cartman or something and embarrassing myself."

Oh god. It was Tweek. Of course it was fucking Tweek. That was what he got for getting his hopes up. Craig groaned and paused his game, all of his aspirations dissolving suddenly like a wisp of smoke in the wind.

"Ugh, do I have to?" he rubbed his forehead, and suddenly noticed he was very tired. Bizarre considering he had slept in until two pm that afternoon. "What time does he want me to come in?"

"Nine am. But you should probably come in a bit earlier so you can help me sanitise everything. I don't like the idea of working somewhere infested with germs."

"Of course you don't." He breathed it, hating his father and kicking himself for actually giving his contact details and his promise of manual labour to these people.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing. I didn't say anything." Craig sighed and pushed the lid of his laptop closed. "Can I just come in and nine? I don't give a shit about germs. Do I have to wear a uniform or anything?"

"Pants, covered shoes, and a dark top. Black is best."

"Great. Fucking great."

Craig didn't have anything black that wasn't in his dirty laundry basket and in need of a wash. If he was going to have to wear something black, then he was going to need to wear half a can of body spray as well. For fucks sake! Couldn't Tweek have called him earlier in the evening? When he still had time to do laundry?

"… So I will see you at nine then?"

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever."

He hung up the phone before Tweek could respond, and he didn't stop to think that on the other end Tweek was sitting on the edge of his bed with white knuckled fists gripping his sheets. The pressure to make a phonecall was something Craig never really felt.

He tossed his cell phone onto his lampstand and groaned again, but the noise turned into a long loud sound of complaint and frustration. Through the wall, his sister screamed at him

"Shut _up_ Craig I'm trying to go to sleep!"

Her shrill, awful voice probably woke up the whole street.


	3. Chapter 3

"Good morning."

Craig hadn't slept very well and if he was going to be honest he felt like total shit, but at least he knew when he walked through the coffee shop doors and spotted Tweek scrubbing the tables down with an obsessive ferocity that he didn't feel anywhere near as bad as Tweek looked.

He yelped like a kicked dog when the door swung shut in Craig's wake, and the sloppy cloth he had been using to clean invisible marks off the table dropped onto the floor with a loud splat.

"Jesus Christ oh man!" he exclaimed. "You gave me such a fright!"

"Its nine o'clock." Craig told him, and for some reason hearing him exclaim like that brought back memories of childhood games and afternoons spent in school assembly side by side. It was kind of funny, how things like social hierarchy could put so much distance between two people. He never really felt any sort of disdain or animosity toward Tweek then, so what was different now?

Did it matter?

"Oh, it is too. Sorry, I wasn't watching the clock. I've been here all morning cleaning and re-writing the menu."

Craig looked at the gleaming floors and at the large blackboard which boasted the menu. Doing so brought a certain amount of pleasant surprise, because the completed board looked like something that a business might pay a professional to put together. Fancy lettering completely unlike Tweek's handwriting and stylish spirals of black and white drew the eye and held it there unabashedly. Not a bad job, for a head case. Not a bad job for someone entirely _compos mentis_ either. It looked pretty fucking good.

"How often do you do that?"

"Every week or so usually. Dad changes the menu a lot and I redraw it every time. Nn..." He scratched the back of his neck and Craig noticed that he had a band-aid on the side of his chin. He decided not to ask about it.

"Right… so what am I supposed to be doing?"

"You need an apron." Tweek told him, leaving the soapy cloth on the floor and a large puddle of what smelt like bleach and household cleaner in the middle of the table as he strode in the direction of the counter. "And I'm going to show you how to use the coffee machine. But don't break it because otherwise dad will make me pay for it."

Craig wasn't sure if he should force a laugh, because as a joke the comment was terribly forced and not at all funny. But when Tweek rounded the counter and Craig once again could see his expression it became clear that he was in fact being quite serious. Or at least, he believed he was.

An uncomfortable lump rose at the back of Craig's throat.

"Here." The apron Tweek gave him was navy blue and had a large Tweek Bros logo on the front. "Put it on and tie it, but don't strangle yourself and don't leave the ties loose because they might catch in the grinder and pull you in with them."

"Oh great. Fantastic. Thanks a lot." Craig pulled the apron over his head and tied it in much the same way any normal person would tie an apron, but he did take care to tuck the ties sloppily into the back of his pants. "What would happen if… you know. That happened."

"You'll probably die. Maybe. I don't know it's never happened before."

"I see."

Tweek gave him a tight lipped smile and pointed hesitantly to the hat perched on top of his head.

"I'm really sorry, but uh… I can't let you wear that."

Almost instantaneously, like it was a reaction spurred by physiological reflex rather than psychological objection, Craig's hand flew to the crown of his head and the floppy yellow pom pom on top of his chullo hat.

"What? My hat?"

"Uh huh." Tweek gnawed his bottom lip and placed his hands on the counter. Craig glanced at his fingers, noted that they were long and bony, and thought that this gesture must be some kind of grounding thing. Like when he was ten and he used to ball his fists tightly, or pull on his hair, or grip the legs of his desk with white knuckles whenever he was called on to answer a question in class. "Sorry. Dads policy."

"But… why?"

His shoulders pulled into a great sloppy shrug.

"Not sure. Just take it off, you can put it somewhere safe until you finish the shift?"

Ugh. Craig felt his stomach sink. He _hated_ going around in public without his hat on. Hatless it was easy to see his ugly dark hair, which troublingly enough had started to grey in threads when he was only fourteen and now boasted what could be called at _least_ a dusting of glimmering silver around his ears and nape.

Okay, it was more like he had probably three grey hairs in total. But he was fairly self conscious about him and when he reluctantly pulled his hat off, he very much expected Tweek to comment.

He did not.

Craig crammed his hat into the back pocket of his jeans and tried to look slightly less uncomfortable than he actually was.

"Okay so what else?'

"Uhm…" Tweek looked worried for a moment, his flustered demeanour giving way to a more sombre look of concern, and his eyes fluttered as he tried to remember what it was he was supposed to do next. "Well, I guess you can go and put the daily specials sign just outside the door? And if you want, after that… come over by me and I can teach you how to use the till machine."

…

Tweek wasn't actually that bad of a teacher. Craig had expected a morning of fumbling and Tweek freaking out, but apparently having done this for five years already Tweek had a pretty good grasp of the processes involved in making and serving coffee to customers. So long as Craig didn't ask any sideways questions, (like 'how many old women hit on you in an average week', or 'what is the longest time I can spend in the bathroom without you know… looking suspicious') he received a fairly brisk and professional explanation of the machinery and the basic tasks he could perform using it, and despite an unfortunate jitter in his hands and a twitch centred mostly on dragging his fingers through his hair, Tweek actually seemed kind of normal as he talked. Some of his intonation, however, was a little bit unsettling: Craig hoped he would stop saying things as though they were a question after a while. Seemingly arbitrary things, like 'the milk is in the fridge' or 'make sure to wash the cream nozzle when you are done squirting it'. It was almost as though he was asking for approval to make these statements, and as the new kid on the block Craig was very hardly in a position to give it. He decided against saying anything though, in case it made it worse.

They made thirty seven sales before ten thirty that morning, mostly to men in suits on their way to work, and at eleven when business picked up again Craig was hardly away from the till, taking money and passing Tweek receipts with names and orders filled out on the back side in blue marker pen.

"Craig, make sure you put the decimal point through the till properly or the money won't balance at the end of the day."

"Right… sorry." Craig poked the decimal point key, which Tweek had told him at least twice had a tendency to either stick or go off erratically, before raising his head to take the next order in line.

"Hey can I take an order?"

The froth making machine thing that Craig didn't know the name of hissed as Tweek shot a silver flask of milk with hot pressurised air. The woman standing in front of the counter was elderly and smiling, and apparently this was the average client here at Tweek Bros coffee - Desiccated and amiable with a touch of forgetfulness.

"My, my," She said as greeting. "I'd like a plain black coffee please, extra hot."

"What size?"

"Regular."

Craig entered the order, tore off the printout, and scribbled this information hurriedly on the back side.

"And your name?"

"Dorothy. Say, are you new here? Such a handsome young boy first thing on a Monday morning…"

Well, so far the answer to the hitting on question was hovering around once. But it was only four hours into his first shift.

"I… this is my first shift actually."

He jumped when the order he was holding was snatched out of his hand.

"Don't chat with the customers." Tweek murmured, not meeting his eye. "It's dangerous."

He did not elaborate on this, setting the slip on the bench next to him and set about grinding the beans to make the order.

Craig's brow knitted in bewilderment. The woman he was serving certainly looked like no threat he had ever encountered. He put through the payment quickly and moved on to the next customer.

By one in the afternoon, business lulled again, and realising that he had probably _never _spent this much time on his feet Craig couldn't help but slump over the till like Tweek had been the first day he had come in and applied for his job. His feet were sore and his eyelids heavy. And the weird music playing from Tweek's iPod made his head hurt. There was something horribly exhausting about having to deal with customers coming in and talking in a hundred different voices, ordering a hundred different things, and it was fortunate for Craig that the impatient looks and occasional rude comments didn't bother him that much at all. In fact, he couldn't care less, and so far customer service had delivered pretty much exactly what he had expected it would.

He hated it.

But not any more than he hated other necessary things, like school or haircuts or having to clean his hands when he's finished jerking off.

"Here."

He was startled when something hot was placed by his elbow, and upon investigation the hot thing proved to be a short paper cup of coffee, the steam coiling off the surface like little dragons.

"Huh? Who ordered this?"

"No one." Tweek gave him a shy little smile and hooked a few stands of hair behind his ear. "I mean, it's for you. If you want it. We can drink as much as we like."

Well, that was a perk of sorts he supposed. Craig didn't actually _like_ coffee, per say, but it was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick so even though he thought about saying so a combination of why not and guilt induced by the way Tweek wouldn't look him in the eye meant that in the end, he gave in.

He sighed and stood up straight, and picked up the small paper cup of coffee as though it wasn't approximately five million degrees Fahrenheit at least. Tweek watched him do it, with those weird eyes of his, and he noted that the shallow frown lines on his brow softened when Craig brought the cup to his lip and sipped it tersely.

It burned like a million suns on the tip of his tongue, and it wasn't until he swallowed that a very dark thought occurred to him – what if Tweek had done something to it while he had been distracted?

His workmate turned away, and set about brewing himself a massively large cup of Americano. Craig noticed that he had his bangs pinned back, but the little black clips hadn't done all that much in the sense they were intended. Uneasy, he set his drink back down and glanced around the shop. There were three customers. An elderly women who had ordered a teabag and hot water, and a pair of Goth kids Craig recognised from somewhere but he couldn't for the life of him think of their names. He leant his hip against the counter and folded his arms.

"… So this is an average day?" he asked, eyes darting to the clock and hoping in the back of his mind that he would be allowed to leave soon. Tweek hadn't actually told him how long he would be here for, and he had estimated he would be home by at latest three. Was this standard procedure? Craig wasn't sure. The whole affair had been quite casual so far, there hadn't even been any mention of bank account details or pay checks yet and he would have thought that would be one of the first things addressed upon starting the course of his employment. How was he supposed to get reimbursed for his time and efforts? Tips had been skinny all morning and with a sinking feeling in his stomach it occurred to him that perhaps his training would be unpaid. Was he standing here all morning for nothing? Should he ask, or would that kind of enquiry only serve to work Tweek into a nervous frenzy? He had been so normal all morning, and Craig didn't want to find himself lulled into a false sense of security about his stability and accidentally set him off by asking troublesome questions. He was already second guessing why it was the two of them had stopped being friends in the first place, and that was concerning. It was because Tweek had become unhinged right? It wasn't anything to do with Craig just kind of… going along with the crowd?

"… Yeah." Tweek nodded, eyes fixed on the coffee machine he was working. His face in profile looked like any teenaged boys face. Perfectly usual except for the shadows under his eyes. "Mostly. But you won't be working days so it uh… doesn't really matter. Dad and Mom work during the day normally. You have to do night shift. With me."

Craig felt his eyebrows creeping upward despite his efforts to retain a neutral expression.

"So why am I here right now?"

"'Cause dad. He wanted you to come in so he could talk to you. He won't be here until four. Mm."

Craig groaned and Tweek jumped. He almost looked a little taken aback.

"I have to wait until _four_?"

"Uh, well, it's usually quiet from now until four so it's not too bad…"

"Ugh." Craig had another mouthful of coffee. The drink was so bitter that he barely even noticed how hot it was. Or vice versa. Quiet or not, the fact remained that he was supposed to stick around here for another _three hours at least_, and when this job wasn't fast paced and annoying Craig had a sneaking suspicion it was going to be mind numbingly boring. Tweek was hardly good conversation, and his presence meant that Craig would only spend hours wondering what was even going on in that frazzled little head. "God, how do you even _work_ this job? It's exhausting. And no offence but don't you get… you know. Nervous dealing with all the customers?"

Tweek's expression shifted to one of surprise, most likely because he hadn't expected that Craig would even bring that up so directly. Craig was shocked to hear it come out of his mouth as well- no one at school ever mentioned Tweek's issues to his face. Subjects like that were usually saved for mockery or chatter behind his back, and it was an issue of contrition among their peers whether or not Tweek even realised that everyone knew he was batshit insane. Craig very nearly regretted how easily it just slipped out.

Please don't let him get angry.

"Uh, honestly?" he finished making his coffee, and it was obvious when he picked it up that his hands were tremoring more than Craig had ever seen them. His cheeks were pink, but besides that he didn't seem any different than if Craig had asked him about the weather. "It kills me, man. Every day I get up and I think today's the day I loose my shit. But here I am, I guess."

He almost spilt his drink down his front when he took a mouthful.

Craig couldn't tell if he was being serious. He decided that it was easier not to reply, because he didn't really know what to say.

…

It would have been easier to concentrate on what Mister Tweek was saying to him if his cell phone wasn't vibrating in his back pocket.

Also, Richard Tweek was kind of difficult to listen to at the best of times – his voice was much too watery and gentle, like he was narrating one of those shitty public access TV ads his entire life, and he seemed very wishy-washy in regards to actually giving Craig a guarantee of wages. Getting him to settle on nine fifty an hour was hard enough, and tips seemed to be right out, but Craig had a sneaking suspicion that tips were in fact the only reimbursement Tweek received for his work in the store, so he decided he might as well let that go.

"Really though," Mister Tweak told him softly, as they lingered behind the counter and studied the clientele lining up for their afternoon fix of beans, "I just needed someone to come in a few evenings a week and keep him company. He's not very good at making friends."

He gestured discreetly to his son, and Craig felt a strange twinge of guilt in his belly. Tweek looked okay when he was working. His voice didn't waiver and he didn't make any obvious mistakes. It was strange to see him in this environment actually, keeping it together after hearing him confess to being a mess, and it was interesting to compare him to the Tweek who shuffled down the corridors as though he suspected everyone around him was thinking about doing him in. All the same, Craig wasn't sure he was up to putting any effort into befriending him. Babysitting? He could do that. Friends? No way. Admittedly, looking after Tweek wasn't the job he had anticipated but he knew when he walked into this place that he would be getting something slightly less than usual, so deal with it he would. He kept thinking about that computer of his. That one he really really needed real bad. As soon as he had it, he decided in that moment, he would quit, and he would never have to talk to these people again.

"Right…" he pulled his phone out and rubbed his thumb over the back, hoping Mister Tweak would get the message and send him home to answer it soon. It was probably only Clyde or something, but all the same he was itching to leave, and he didn't miss the way that his employers eyes darted down briefly when he extracted it, and a slight expression of distaste passed over his face.

"… Did Tweek tell you the hours you would be working?" he asked.

Craig went to nod, but hesitated.

"No, not yet. He mentioned something…"

"Ten through six, Wednesday through Saturday."

Crags jaw dropped obviously.

_"__At night?"_

Mister Tweek nodded seriously.

"Yes. You start tomorrow. If you don't want the job, let me know before lunchtime." He sighed and folded his arms across his chest. "But I do hope that you join our family here at Tweek Bros coffee. Nothing beats the rich dark roast of companionship, and there is nothing quite as satisfying as the feeling of serving up quality beverages to quality customers."

Craig rolled his eyes.

"I'm sure."

What he wasn't so sure of though, now he knew the hours he was expected to work, was whether or not he even wanted to stay on here at all. Ten through six?! Even for nine dollars fifty and hour, that seemed ridiculous. Why did the coffee shop even have to stay open all night? Craig had known vaguely that Tweek bros was twenty four hours, but he didn't imagine all that many people would come into the store at two am to get coffee. Did Mister Tweek _really_ need him to work overnights? Did he _really_?

He grabbed his hat from the spot Tweek had stashed it under the counter, and after pulling off his apron made his way home.

…

The messages were from an unknown number.

Well, it said unknown, but Craig knew who it was the moment he opened and read the SMS because there was only one person who punctuated her sentences with that many stupid iPhone emoticons.

_Hi Craig! I got your number off Kenny, I hope you don't mind. _

Craig sat at the kitchen table and stared at his phone, as though if he stared long enough the appropriate response would just appear there in the reply box ready to send. He had to read the message two of three times before it really sunk in, and it wasn't until the fourth time he read it that he saw it wasn't Clyde or Token who had given her his contact information at all. It was Kenny. And besides feeling horribly betrayed and ever so slightly flustered in his stomach Craig felt an awful lot like he was going to kill him. Seriously. The guy was fucking _dead_. Now what was he supposed to do? He hadn't talked to girls since he was thirteen, and up until that point he hadn't been that flash at it anyway. What did she want? Was this some kind of a joke or something?

For some reason he felt vaguely like Tweek would understand this feeling, which was a strange kind of a thought to have but he didn't really notice in the face of his dilemma.

He was just about to reply to his text, a brief 'hi', when his dad walked in and noticed him sitting there, and he regretted not having taken himself upstairs and cloistering himself up in his room.

"Job going okay?" he grunted. Craig shrugged.

"I'm having seconds thoughts," he said without thinking. "They want me to work ten to six in the morning."

His father froze in place by the cupboard, the box of saltine crackers he had just extracted clamped tightly in his hand.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Second thoughts? There's nothing wrong with those hours. You sleep in the daytime anyway."

"Ugh, yeah whatever." Craig stood up and kicked his chair back in place under the table. "Look, I'll worry about it later, okay? I have more important things to deal with."

He made his way upstairs, to spend the rest of the evening deliberating over what the hell he is supposed to say to Bebe. Now he was considering it further, a simple 'hi' just wasn't going to be okay.


	4. Chapter 4

It was ten o'clock pm exactly. Craig was checking his skin in the Tweek Bros bathroom mirror when Tweek interrupted him, large mop bucket and bottle of sugar soap in hand.

"Hey man. So uh, you wanna help me clean the floors?"

"There's only one mop." Craig told him. "Besides, I don't start for another thirty seconds."

"I can wait."

Tweek gave him the measured little smile that was quickly becoming idiosyncratic, and Craig noticed for the first time that he had never seen Tweek smile in a way that touched his eyes. At least not since they had started high school anyway.

Craig felt a troubled prickling on the back of his neck, but he sighed as though he did not and pulled his hat unenthusiastically off his head.

"Fine. Where's my mop."

"Here. Use this. I'll just use a cloth."

Unfortunately, cleaning the floor was the most interesting thing that happened before midnight that very first night on shift.

The night was cold and overcast, and Craig had suspected it might rain before dawn broke and he finally got to go home and crawl into bed. Fortunately, the coffee shop was super toasty and Mister Tweak had opted not for the unpleasant fluorescent lights of all night diners and corner stores but warm frosted bulbs which made the place kind of cosy. In a late night coffee shop kind of way. Standing sentinel behind the counter, picking his fingernails and wondering if he should make himself a coffee just to relieve his boredom, Craig paid low key attention to what Tweek did to pass the time. Cleaning things and seemingly mumbling to himself mostly, and sometimes when he thought Craig absorbed in his nail picking he would brace himself against the sink and flex his neck. As though he had knots or something in there giving him issues. His music plaid eerily in the background, but Craig was beginning to get used to it just like he was starting to get used to the way he moved around a lot. The streetlights outside the store window cast uneasy cones of light on the deserted streets, and he tried very hard to avoid looking out the window in case he saw something he didn't care for.

Craig had never been a great fan of the dark. He had made a point in the past of concealing this, but he had in fact slept with a nightlight in his room until he was fourteen.

It was cool though. Seriously. He was way past that now and so long as he kept himself concentrated on the world inside the store, everything would be A-ok.

Fucking night shift though.

It was just. So. _Boring_.

At eleven fifty seven, he slapped his hand down on the counter and made Tweek swear loudly. The blender lid he was holding clattered to the floor.

"Are we likely to get _any _customers tonight?" He asked, and he must have sounded pretty mad because Tweek grimaced and shook his head almost immediately.

"Sometimes on Fridays Stan and That Group come in and get drinks for a little while. And Saturdays drunk people on their way home from parties and bars…"

"It's Thursday." Craig told him, duly unimpressed by his answer. "You mean your dad _is _actually paying me to stand here and do nothing all night?"

Tweek shrugged his shoulders, but it wasn't really a shrug. More of an allusion to one. Tweek didn't have the commitment to not knowing any more than he had commitment to knowing for sure.

"I, uh, I don't know why he opens the shop at night. I really don't think it's a good idea either. I did tell him."

Well. Mister tweak hasn't been lying. The only thing in his job description was babysitting this lost cause after all. Tweek averted his eyes as if he was afraid Craig was going to start claiming it was all his fault (which it was to some extent but Craig wasn't going to make the effort to actually say that), and Craig turned his back to his company, looking out into the empty shop and heaving a mighty sigh.

"Can I use my phone?" he asked half-heartedly. "Or is that not allowed either?"

Craig was still sore about the loss of his hat.

"Mm. Sure." Tweek told him. "Go for it. That's what I usually do to pass the time."

Craig still hadn't made the effort to text Bebe Stevens back.

…

He was very nearly falling asleep.

It was almost four am, and the 'customers only' sofa under the window was comfortable, the air conditioning creating a pleasant atmosphere most appropriate for sleep or relaxation. Possibly both. Tweek had shut off half the lights at around two to conserve power, and despite having drunk a coffee not half an hour prior Craig felt himself drifting in the space between wakefulness and sleep as he lay there, his head resting on the arm and his knees bent upwards comfortably. Tweek was busying himself on his cell phone, and he sat on the chair next to Craig with his knees tucked under him. He seemed almost frenzied, tapping at his cell phone screen like his very life depended on it, and after a while of watching this through bleary eyes Craig asked him.

"Dude. What the fuck are you doing?"

"Playing Tetris." Came the timid answer. "I'm actually pretty good."

Craig bet he was, if he spent his entire evenings at work playing, completely alone and energised by three tall cups of coffee.

"Oh."

Craig's eyes slipped closed and he heaved a deep sigh. His mind wandered to his bed, and to the warmth of his duvet and the comforting sounds of his guinea pigs snuffling around in their spotless cage. He could be there right now, in his room. Either asleep or gaming, it mattered not at all. What mattered was that he ought to be away from here, and the more he thought about it the more warm and dreamlike the scenery became. He almost could have believed he _was_ there, were it not for Tweek's voice disturbing him and making his eyes snap open again in surprise.

"Hey, uh, Craig?"

"What?" Craig sat up and shook his head. He was starting to get a headache in the diamond between his eyes.

Tweek coughed softly and set his phone down.

"… Remind me why you're here again?"

"I needed a job." He answered plainly, as though that much should be obvious. "I told you that already."

Tweek scrunched his face up and set his phone down on the arm of his chair.

"Sorry it's not a good job." He murmured. "I should've told you it's not that great."

Craig scoffed, reaching for one of the magazines on the table in front of them and casting a brief glance over the articles. So and so has just had a baby. Someone else has gained ten kilos. Craig gave approximately zero fucks, but he opened the magazine to falls fresh new colours and started to read. Apparently, peach lipstick would do wonders for his complexion. "S'okay."

He checked his phone, observed there was still no reply, and heaved a sigh. Tweek's eyes swung to his Samsung and he put two and two together easily.

"Waiting for a text?"

"Bebe. She text me yesterday but I didn't know how to reply."

He seemed surprised.

"Bebe? From school?"

"No. Bebe from Fight Club." He didn't want to go in depth with him about that kind of thing right now. He was bored, but he wasn't so desperate as to start talking about his weird little social dilemmas. Particularly ones which weren't even dilemmas, he had just gotten fucked over by someone he thought was a bro. God, every time he thought about Kenny giving her his number, filled with good intentions and a little too much testosterone for a guy his size, Craig's head swum with frustration and shame and a few other odd feelings (specific to Kenny, unfortunately) that he couldn't quite articulate clearly. Often he wished he and Kenny had a better or more communicative relationship – at least that way he would have been able to make it clear he didn't want girls getting his number at random. Then he realised that he hadn't even messaged Kenny a nice healthy fuck you for his efforts. He picked up his phone and set about sending one out immediately.

Tweek stared at him with startled eyes, and it reminded Craig a lot of the way that Mojo froze up when there was a loud noise on the street outside his house so Craig couldn't help feel a little guilty for snapping like that. Goddamnit. He sighed and flicked his eyes upward to give him a look.

"Just kidding. Yes Bebe from school. Kenny gave her my cell phone number even though I told him I wasn't interested. Bebe is hot but shes not really my type." He pressed send on Kenny's message and screwed his nose up thoughtfully. "I don't think I'm a very compatible person."

"No." Tweek said, his tone somewhat contemplative, and Craig snapped his head up in surprise.

"What?"

"I mean, sure! I mean, what no don't be stupid I'm sure you're… a great… guy?" his previous calmness evaporated like a drop of water on a hot skillet, and in the aftermath he seemed flustered and annoyed at himself for letting his guard down. The shadows under his eyes looked deeper than usual, and his face looked drawn and washed out. "Fuck, I'm sorry that came out wrong. Oh man. Jesus Christ."

And even though it seemed kind of mean, Craig really couldn't help but laugh.

"Holy shit. You seem like any regular guy sometimes, but you say something wrong or weird just one time and you freak way out about it."

"I can't help it!" he flushed a vivid magenta colour and exclaimed quite shortly. Craig realised he may have touched a nerve. "I have some problems with socialising. I'm just trying to be normal!"

"… Whoa. Calm down. It's okay I was just teasing you." Craig's eyes fixed on Tweek's face, and he forced himself to look chill and genuine. The angry little roses on white cheeks were quite distracting. "Like I said, you come across really well a lot of the time. I mean… better than you did when we were younger." He paused for a moment and Tweek glared at the arm of his chair with a surprising ferocity. Where should Craig even take the conversation from here? "Did you uh… go to a counsellor or something?"

"No. a hypnotist. Jesus Christ it was horrible. Sometimes I can still hear his voice in my head and it drives me _insane, _man. I was mentally violated and my parents paid him to do it. And then they gave me pills so I'd stop complaining about it."

"… Oh."

Craig had been planning on congratulating him on his progress since fourth grade, but now he thought he may just hold his tongue. Tweek's eyes shone with an almost manic light and he seemed _furious_, but the next time he spoke it was with a clear, calm voice.

"Your phone is about to go off." He said, returning his attention to his game.

Four seconds later, the vibrate alert went off, and Craig couldn't help the goose pimples which moved in a cold wave down his spine.

…

"An ordinary night then?" Craig asked, and Tweek nodded. The time was nearing five thirty, and for an hour there Craig had actually drifted to sleep, but now the sun was rising and Tweek had just set a hot mug of caramel latte in front of him so he supposed he could use a pick me up before heading out into the deserted streets and heading home.

"Sometimes I read books or bring my laptop in." Tweek told him tersely. "If you don't want to chat with me, you can do that tonight. I don't mind."

Craig sipped his drink, found it to actually be somewhat pleasing to taste, and shrugged in a non-comitial way which said 'I'll pretend to want to talk to you, but you bet your balls I'll be bringing my computer to this shithole this evening to help me pass the time.' Tweek gave him another one of those cold smiles and sat down again in the armchair next to Craig's sofa.

"Soon we have to go back behind the counter."

"Hurrah."

"Hurrah." He pushed his hair back off his face and sighed. When his eyes fluttered closed, and maybe it was just the sunrise and the sleepless night playing tricks on him, Craig thought he looked almost hyper real. Luminescent and celestial.

Perhaps it was just the overwhelming strength of this first morning cup of coffee.

…

Texting Bebe became a little easier after a while.

Once he got into the rhythm of it, he found that he wasn't actually that out of practice when it came to talking to girls because apparently, if you've talked to one you've talked to them all. He still remembered the kind of things his girlfriend of some four years ago used to like gossip about, and apparently Bebe was of similar ilk because when it came to the social affairs of those in their year group she just wanted to shut up not at all. Perhaps it was some strange girl mind game trying to get him primed, talking about who was dating who and who was getting the most romantic gifts from who this summer break, or maybe she really did think he gave a fuck. But whenever she text him 'did you hear…' he text back 'no I didn't, that's really cool' or some variation thereupon, and made himself a game to see how long it took for her to notice.

So far, he was winning. He had been talking to her like this for four hours by the time seven pm rolled around.

Craig was sitting at his desk grooming his guinea pigs and eating celery, which he didn't really like but found to be a great excuse for the consumption of straight peanut butter from the jar and therefore, was probably worth it all in the end. Bebe was working her way up to asking whatever it was she wanted to ask, whether it was 'wanna go out sometime' or much more likely, Craig realised slowly and with a strange sense of hopefulness, 'Could you please tell Clyde I'm sorry for me and to ask me out again please' – something he would do in a eye blink if it was guaranteed to get her off his back. As he gave Mojo a light poke on the nose, he wondered if he was perhaps being unkind, or if there was something kind of wrong with him that he wasn't really interested in Bebe's advances. She was nice looking and blonde, successfully achieving the two most fundamental qualities Craig looked for in an appealing mate, and on top of that she was fairly smart too and all his friends definitely seemed to like her. Admittedly, it would make Craig feel kind of like he was betraying himself to be interested in a girl like her, not to mention a complete abandonment of that one embarrassing little crush he had been harbouring for what seemed like most of his teenaged life, but sometimes he just couldn't believe that this was happening. Was he _really_ going to turn down a girl of that calibre if he was propositioned? Why? And from the back of his head that dark, concerning question which had troubled him since early puberty rose to the surface of his mind. Was he Gay or something? Was there something wrong with him, beyond just being a cold and unlikeable person? Was he going to have to tell his mother someday that she would never be a grandmother because he liked fantasizing about taking a dick up the ass to much, or explain to his father that he would rather be fucked by twenty muscular firemen than go down on that one elegant actress that Thomas Tucker always spoke of as being the pinnacle of feminine beauty?

Craig flushed, because he absolutely knew he wasn't straight up unadulterated _gay_. He'd always liked girls and he'd always liked how they looked. But it was more complicated than just that. There were… other factors and he tried not to pay them too much attention most of the time. As the case was right now, he just didn't like Bebe specifically. He discarded his celery, picking his pets up and moving to the bed so he could let them crawl on his legs and duvet while he distracted himself with cyberspace. He booted his shitty laptop and kicked off his shoes, but his cell phone was still in his pocket so he was still getting all those silly messages, and he was starting to get impatient. He was going to tell her he had to go shower or something, when a photo message successfully came through.

_Went bra shopping today_.

Craig was so shocked. It took him a minute to figure out whether or not he was supposed to respond.

_Oh_, was all he managed, and he tried not to look at the photo while he typed it. _Nice_.

He put his phone under the pillow and ignored it for the rest of the night.


	5. Chapter 5

**So im not sure if i mentioned this but ive actually been posting updates to this fic a few weeks behind on this site - There are seven chapters written and posted already on AO3 so if you arent keen to wait for me to do the thing where i put it up here then i would recommend hopping overways and checking out archive of our own dot org /works /2499410 /chapters /5548301 (remove spaces)**

* * *

><p><em>When you were young you were the king of carrot flowers<br>And how you built a tower tumbling through the trees  
>In holy rattlesnakes that fell all around your feet<em>

…

After all cleaning and maintenance tasks were completed, and the obligatory and primarily instructional smalltalk with his companion preformed, Craig soon found that working at the coffee shop wasn't _too_ bad with his shitty computer there by his side. He found the nights went faster mostly, and he thought that every-wary Tweek (who was still more than likely very suspicious of him and his motivations) probably preferred it this way too because it meant that Craig didn't talk to him too much, but unfortunately there were times that his laptop was running so goddamned slowly he had nothing to do but sit around and gaze at the deserted shop and at the darkened windows, and at three am the faintest understanding of what it might be like to be the last man alive made itself known in the back of his mind. Sometimes, he wondered if he should try and talk to Tweek some more, but he was reluctant to inflict himself upon someone who had had the decency to resist forcing talk or socialisation thus far. Tweek was usually busy anyway- Most nights he had a book or his phone in his hand, and Craig observed quite by accident that he seemed to be a fast reader.

Tweek made his way through about a novel a night. Craig was never close enough proximity to him to see what he read, but besides cleaning and rearranging himself in some private booth at the front of the store he did very little. Every half an hour or so he would make himself a new cup of coffee, and offer Craig one which he very rarely took, and while Craig waited for his slow ass excuse for a laptop to load saved files or the next section of a game map he busied himself by observing the ways that Tweek made himself comfortable in his body.

He didn't shake like he used to. That was the first thing Craig noticed about him. The second was that he moved with a strange kind of gracefulness, and a hesitance that made him look almost exactly as high strung as he was.

The third thing Craig noticed was that Tweek could see him staring, and upon realising this he felt instantly embarrassed and tried to pass it off as the blank starting into space thing that most people did when particularly bored.

But Tweek wasn't stupid.

It was the first Saturday night and there had been three sales while Craig had been cleaning the bathrooms, so apparently Tweek had been telling the truth about business picking up on the weekend after all. It was past 1am and Craig was several tasks into playing a game he had finished about fifty times for the fifty first time, but his screen had bugged out and he had to do a system restore so he was watching Tweek where he stood behind the counter, dog earring the pages of a skinny book with a red cover.

"… What do you want from me?" Tweek asked without looking up, and Craig wasn't sure at first if he was talking to him or to himself.

"Huh?"

"What do you want from me? You keep staring and its freaking me out." He looked up, and his brow was creased in a way which made Craig sure he thought he was thinking unkind things about him. "Is there something on my face?"

How stupid did he have to be to think Tweek wouldn't notice his eyes drilling into him so shamelessly anyway?

"Oh! No, nothing. I was just…" he looked hurriedly down at the windows recovering screen and bit his lip. "I was just looking and you happened to kind of get in my way."

Tweek blinked and pressed his lips together.

"I was sitting here first?"

"… Yeah. Well. Oh well."

He would have kicked himself for how weak that argument was, but he didn't want to make a scene.

Tweek coughed quietly, and returned his attention back to his book.

Oh god. Now Craig felt bad, because he didn't doubt that Tweek was sitting there wondering f he was deformed or if he had a rampant booger or if Craig hated his guts and everything about him. Which wasn't true but it must have been in his head because he was playing with his bangs and the way his hand hid his face made it obvious. God he was obvious. Or maybe he was just vulnerable, and Craig seemed to be unfortunately predisposed to like vulnerable creatures - the more he did it the more Craig wanted to excuse himself and leave to avoid further offense.

Goddamn. He had never felt bad about ostracising Tweek before, and treating him like a curiosity or object of fascination. What had changed? Maybe it was the fact that they were alone now, and he had time to think about it, and that little things like watching him nibble his fingernails and flick his hair off his face made him seem more… real. A multi dimensional human with many different feelings and thoughts inside.

Oh dear. Now he was starting to feel kind of sick.

He sighed and closed his laptop lid.

"Fuck okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. You're just more interesting than this piece of shit, is all."

Tweek turned a pale pink and dropped his hand.

"… What's wrong with it?" he asked, and Craig shrugged.

"Just old. I'm using the money I make here to buy a new one. I need one which can plays games."

"You still play computer games?"

"Of course. Don't you?"

Tweek shook his head and closed his book. He lined it up very deliberately next to the cash register and brushed his hand over the countertop, as though dusting away invisible crumbs.

"No one to play with." He said, smoothing down the front of his apron and looking at Craig sitting in the customer sofa. "I used to play minecraft and WOW. You know that."

"Yeah I remember. You weren't too bad."

"I uh, have fast reactions." He looked a little troubled, and Craig wondered if he could leave the conversation at that or if he should carry on. Tweek decided for him, by offering him a coffee.

"No thanks. I don't actually like coffee that much."

"Do you want a hot chocolate then?"

"… oh my god." Craig had never thought to ask for such a thing. Which seemed ridiculous, because he was a sucker for sweet things and hot chocolate was one of the sweetest things on the whole menu. "I would be so happy."

The corners of Tweek's mouth turned up a little, and for a moment Craig thought it was a _real_ smile. Not just one of those forced ones he usually delivered.

"Give me a moment.  
>He watched Tweek turn away, and start making them both hot beverages.<p>

…

"So are you still friends with Clyde and Token?" Tweek sat opposite him with both hands clasped around his mug, and Craig nodded because he didn't want to explain that really, they were just people he hung around with out of necessity.

"Sure. Kenny too. Jimmy and Timmy and anyone else who isn't cool enough to hang out with Stan and Kyle."

"Stan and Kyle are nice people though. I think. Well." He frowned and his knuckles whitened as he tensed in thought. "Niceer than they were as kids."

"You used to play with them. That's right."

"I didn't really have much of a choice." He tilted his head to the side, and Craig could see bruising which lay under the neckline of his pale green shirt. A beaded necklace rested on his collarbone, and his skin was so pale it was almost translucent. It was as though his complexion had never seen the sun. "I never had many close friends."

"You had me and Clyde?"

"Yeah. That turned out great."

His eyes rolled and Craig was actually somewhat taken aback. He didn't want to accuse Tweek of going insane and wrecking everything though, because that seemed rude and likely to make him cry. Instead he contained his surprise and had a mouthful of hot chocolate. It was fucking incredible, and he couldn't deny that Tweek sure knew how to brew a good drink.

"… You're more sarcastic than I remember." He remarked. Tweek arched his eyebrows a little and looked hard into Craig's face.

"you're about the same."

He turned his face toward the darkened window, and gazed at the street as though he was watching something out there go about its daily business. Craig forced himself not to look as well, because he still wasn't comfortable with that dimness outside, but considering even sensitive Tweek, who used to be startled if someone brushed against him in the lunch line (Craig would never forget the time Tweek stabbed Kenny in the shoulder with a fork for that exact reason) could look outside at the moon and the stars and the deserted street without feeling discomfort made him a little bit self-conscious about his late night fears.

"Hey, uh, Craig?" His eyes fluttered, and Craig studied his profile with a dry feeling at the back of his tongue because he had a nice profile and in the calm silence of the empty store this was intimidating. His jaw was well balanced and smooth, and his nose was just big enough to have character but not big enough to be ugly or disproportionate to the rest of him, and when he talked his lips moved slowly and clearly so his diction was well measured and gentle. "Can I ask you something?"

"You just did. Something else you mean?"

"Mm." he nodded and looked back to the boy sitting opposite him. Craig watched him as he worried his lip, and clutched his mug just a little tighter in his hands.

"Sure." It was a suspicious proposition, but Craig thought he may as well see where this was going.

"… Did I do something?"

It took a moment to figure out what he actually meant. When he looked obviously puzzled, Tweek turned a florid red and tried to salvage the question by rephrasing it. "Like… was there something that happened which made you hate me? Or was it just something which kind of just… ugh. You know?" he made eyes that pleaded for Craig to finish the question, and Craig felt the atmosphere thicken uncomfortably because wow, way to put him on the spot. He had never thought Tweek would want to call him out on something like this, but maybe he should have been a little bit more logical. He probably would want to know… it wasn't like he or anyone had given the guy an explanation. They just kind of… stopped talking.

"I never hated you." Craig started carefully, "It was something that just faded out. I think we just… had different interests?"

Tweek frowned and placed his mug squarely in front of him on the table.

"We did?"

"Sure. I liked videogames and puberty, you liked sniffing paint and accusing strangers of stealing your thoughts."

"… Oh. Right." He looked a little put out by this, as though he hadn't realised there was a difference but also like he knew Craig was right and arguing would be an exercise in futility and pride. "Jesus… oh man that's grim."

"It happens."

"Yeah but I never…" he let his sentence trail away and sighed heavily. "I dunno. For so long, I never felt like you or anyone else treated me different to how you treated each other. And then one day suddenly I was the weird kid even though I was exactly the same." His hands disappeared under the table, and Craig wondered if he was sitting on them, to stop him from picking at his nails or scratching the table. His mug was empty, and leaving a ring on the freshly cleaned surface. "It was the scariest thing, man. You really start questioning who you think you are. Maybe you aren't yourself any more, or maybe everyone else has changed, and I don't know why I'm telling you this I don't even like you." He looked down at the table and Craig felt another small twinge of offence even though really, he shouldn't care.

"Maybe you're going crazy, being here so many nights alone."

Tweek's eyes darted up, and he narrowed them just a tiny bit.

"…Yeah. Maybe I'm going crazy. Just a little bit."

…

It was a lazy afternoon Craig found himself browsing facebook, and although he had started off on Bebe's page reading through her interests, looking at how that body of hers looked in various clothes and comparing it to the way it looked in underwear, he couldn't resist the urge to drift sideways and into the pages of people he wasn't allowed to stare at for extended periods of time in his everyday life

Quite unsurprisingly, the number one person in that category was Tweek, and mush to Craig's delight it seemed that the two of them had never broken off their facebook friendship- Tweek had complete privacy on his page and of all his friends, Craig had been the only one who had maintained their link for the purposes of drunken page surfing with his buddies. He hadn't really thought about this before now, but the satisfaction that came from clicking on his name in the search engine and bringing up a wealth of personal information about him was immense.

He started with Tweek's basics, found that he already knew his birth date, address and relationship status, and made to go through his interests and TV shows instead.

Apparently, Tweek had never found any reason to update either of these things. Nor had he updated his education experience. It still said he attended Denver Willowback House, the asylum place where he had probably been hypnotised and treated for many things including an unintended drug habit, and his friends list seemed to be cluttered with four hundred nurses and fellow patients he had met there over the span of however many months he had been gone. The only thing that had updated regularly were his statuses (all of them nonsensical: 'I drink two mugs of coffee, there is only milk and sugar in my cup') and his profile pictures. Fortunately, he wasn't the sort of person to have anything other than a picture of himself as his icon, and most of his images were ones taken by other people at events like 'family reunion' and 'two for pone coffee day TBC'. It was suffice to say that in most, he looked like a bunny under headlights, and it would have been cute if he wasn't so lanky and obviously uncomfortable in every single situation. There wasn't one photo in which he wasn't wide eyed and surprised looking, and nor was there one in which he was smiling, and even sandwiched between aunties and next to doting customers he seemed out of place and out of step – he was like another species, and a deeply fascinating one at that.

Despite it all, Craig couldn't help but notice that he was really frustratingly handsome. Particularly in his family Christmas photos, where he wore his hair tied back into a stubby ponytail.

God, why could Craig not excise him from his mind?

He forced himself to click on kenos page instead, and as usual it was cluttered with selfies and unflattering drunk shots, but Kenny was photogenic anyway so it didn't much matter if he was posing with Kyle or if Stan was holding his hair back while he vomited in the gutter. He was still Kenny, and he was still gorgeous, and Craig felt a cramp of envy in his stomach as he scrolled down his page and saw that so many girls, including Bebe, had left comments on his page thanking him. Flattering him. Inviting him to stop by their house and say hi.

Say hi with his dick.

Craig groaned and slammed his laptop shut, before oozing off his desk chair and collapsing face down into the pillow on his bed. He could hear music playing through the wall, and it was that one direction album Craig hated but knew most of the words to so he figured that his sister probably had friends over or something. He wished he could just invite a friend over for once, and sit around doing nothing besides listen to music, but he didn't have any friends that were close enough to warrant this kind of behaviour.

He realised, with his mouth blocked by pillow and his head spinning with the smell of his shampoo, that he was actually very lonely, and he knew that he would in all likelihood spend the rest of the evening trying to fill the gap this feeling left in him with game rage and diet soda.

It was no great life, but it was his own.


	6. Chapter 6

"No no, oh Jesus dude you've fucked it."

Tweek's hands hovered over his in panic while Craig held the milk jug under the steamer, and he failed to see what the big deal was because as far as he was concerned there was no such thing as scalding milk but what did he know; he apparently lacked the motor skills necessary to rotate the pitcher and create satisfactory foam anyway.

Cold fingers touched his briefly and indicated that he should take the steaming wand out of the hot milk and put the jug on the sink with the other four, and Craig couldn't help but be mad about the whole ordeal because he could already use the till, grind the coffee and produce the molassesy black ooze which seemed to be the fundamental ingredient in all coffee beverages with the machines and tools provided – why did he need to know how to heat milk as well?

"This is too hard." He snapped, and Tweek raked his hands through his hair in exasperation. "I'm never going to need to make a coffee anyway."

"Oh come on, what else are we supposed to do? Dad will kill me if I don't teach you how to do it properly. Jesus, this is so much _pressure_."

He looked so distressed Craig almost felt bad for being frustrated about it. He groaned and shoved his hands into his pockets, as Tweek fumbled around the counter looking for the wand cleaning cloth.

"Can we give the coffee lessons a miss for the day? I kind of want to go play my game."

"I thought your computer was broken."

"I'm an optimist."

Tweek shot him a look that said he wasn't sure if he was joking or not. In the end, his searching fingers found the edge of the cloth sticking out from beside the coffee menu cards and he sighed heavily, wiping the steaming wand and then tossing the cloth straight into the sink.

"Whatever. I don't mind. Do you want me to make you a drink or something? We have a new tea this week its kind of…" he pulled a face. "Like dried leaves."

Not a tea fan apparently. Craig shrugged and told him he would have whatever he was given.

His game however, just wasn't very interesting.

The tea was actually quite nice, not at all like the bland and dusty leaves Tweek had promised, and as Craig sipped it he made a mental not never to admit to his friends that he enjoyed the experience of drinking hot tea like some kind of an old lady, sinking deeply into the Tweek Bros coffee sofa and watching Tweek scrub the sink out of the corner of his eye. He had grown weary of waiting for his computer to respond to his commands, and he was very nearly out of games to play anyway. He had intended to download some more over the weekend, but had spent most of it asleep and his laziness had reached such a great extent that during his waking hours, he procrastinated even logging into his steam account and browsing the new releases. He really was sitting in a rut, and not even trying to get Bebe off his back had been working.

He listened to the sound of Tweek cleaning (it was drowning out the slow, eerie background music the guy usually had playing, so Craig didn't have much of a choice) as he pulled out his phone and scrolled back through Bebe's most recent messages. Most of them were uninteresting mentions about her friends and her plans for the summer, but Craig had to admit that he was starting to get more comfortable responding to her in more than five or six word bursts. Sometimes, she even had the decency to ask him a question.

_What are you up to tonight_ had been the last, unanswered text. Craig had considered saying 'work', but in the end thought no because she would probably ask where he worked then and Craig would have to tell her. He wasn't sure he could deal with having Bebe show up here at three am to say hi, and he double wasn't sure he could see her face to face after seeing her without… you know. A shirt. It was alright seeing her on facebook, but in real life?

Craig had always wondered what it would be like to receive explicit images of someone else, but in the same way a person reads about having their house robbed or their car stolen, he had never believed it would ever be something that affected him. Sexy pictures were for fifteen year olds and hot people. And besides, didn't Bebe think it was _risky_ to just send pictures to people like him? He could show anyone! Not that he would.

He took a mouthful of tea, and text her back.

_Sitting around playing games mostly. _

She messaged back almost instantaneously.

_I'm watching movies with the ladies. _

A picture came through, and Craig hesitated before opening it, but then he realised that if she was with other people she wouldn't be sending suspicious images and so he opened it up. Sure enough, a fine few ladies were depicted in pyjamas and eating pizzas. Bebe appeared to be in the middle, and Craig had to admit she had a nice smile.

Maybe he was warming to the idea of her and him trying something out for size.

_Sounds kind of cool. What movies are you watching?_

He figured it would be something unexciting and chicky, like twenty whatever dresses or how many bottles of wine does it take until somebody loves me. He was surprised a d al little bit embarrassed at himself to receive the response.

_Lord of the rings marathon. _

Nice. Better than he had thought.

He had been about to text back when a soft cough beside him made him jump, and his cell phone slipped out of his hands and onto his lap with a soft plop.

"Not playing your game?"

"No, I can't concentrate on playing here. I might stop bringing my computer in after all."

It was worth a try though, to bring it in to occupy himself, and he gave Tweek a cool smile which was somewhat shyly returned- Tweek towered over him and his apron was covered in chocolate powder, his hair was held back by a thin wire Alice band, and he was clutching a book in his hands that said _Grimorium Verum_. He was a fascinating picture. As usual.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" he gestured to the spot next to Craig on the sofa, and Craig shuffled over to allow him more room.

"What are you reading?" Craig asked absently, as he tried to remember what he was going to say to Bebe in response.

"Oh. Nothing. It's a translation of this book. About uh… stuff."

"What kind of stuff."

"Just stuff. A friend gave it to me forever ago but I never read it."

Craig would have liked to not have been surprised, but he was.

"You have friends?"

It came out ruder than he meant it to. Tweek looked quite startled, and then quite upset.

"Yes of course I do! I had lots of friends when I was at the hospital! Well, some friends." He shrugged and glanced down at the book he was holding. "Actually, the girl who gave me this wasn't really my friend. More like- oh." He cut himself off, and Craig felt his eyebrows crawl upward despite his efforts to maintain a look of indifference.

"More like what?"

Tweek had turned a very telling shade of red.

"Oh, man, never mind."

He opened to book to a page marked with a crocheted bookmark, and bent the spine so it lay open easily on his lap. Craig took a few extra moments to just stare at him in shock while he pretended to read the same paragraph over and over in humiliation.

So Tweek Tweak had been getting some in the institution huh? How about that.

His first thought was that he couldn't wait to tell his friends all about it. His second thought was one of horrified disgust.

What kind of a bastard was he? Would he really do that kind of thing?

He realised with sick feeling in his stomach that two weeks ago, he would have easily. And he noticed for the first time that maybe for some reason he couldn't really put into words, he was beginning to actually _like _Tweek Tweak.

…

By Wednesday morning somehow, without him really understanding what had happened, Bebe had convinced him to take her out for lunch at the City Wok. Maybe she had suggested it and he had just said 'yeah cool' without realising, or maybe it had been five am when he agreed so he didn't been thinking all that clearly, it didn't matter. What mattered was that he had at least pulled on some jeans that weren't covered in spilled coffee and a shirt that didn't attract too much attention to himself, and after a quick check in the mirror (his skin was looking so much better, but his lips were sore and chapped to buggery) he had made his way down to the downtown area to wait for her. And sure enough, at around eleven thirty am, she came. And she was wearing a sundress that made her breasts look immense and shoes that could only have been purchased with the proprietors discount at Clyde's dads shoe shop.

"Hi." She smiled, removing her sunglasses and slipping them easily into her purse. Her eyes were the plainest baby blue. Her lips were the smooth peachy colour of nude lipstick. "Ready to go?"

"Sure."

He was glad that Mister Tweek had paid him last Friday. His debit card was loaded with at least enough money to buy her a bowl of rice. She hooked her arm in his and started pulling him in the direction of the restaurant, and he couldn't help but notice that she smelled like that expensive perfume Clyde bought her a few months ago, and it was kind of nice but also a little bit cloying. Bebe was a girl who walked like she was the queen of the universe. She knew how to play a guy for her own profit, and Craig hated how watching the way she held her chin kind of made him want to give her money and material possessions. Fucking hell.

He wondered what Tweek would do in this situation, in an effort to distract himself. He realised that Tweek was probably not stupid enough to find himself in this situation. For a goddamned nut he was actually kind of smart. A troubling realisation, if ever there was one.

They made it to City Wok without Craig having to say much. Bebe happily did all the talking, and for some reason she took great pleasure in discussing how Wendy was starting to get sick of Stan Marsh and their relationship. Maybe Craig would have cared more if he still hated Stan, rather than just having developed thoroughly indifferent feelings toward him halfway through middle school. Apparently, he was a whiney little bitch, and a needy one at that. Which wouldn't have been so much an issue if he didn't spend all his time whining about needing Kyle Broflovski. That was hardly news. It had been a virulent rumour among the high school boys for at least three years now that the only reason Stan was still dating Wendy was because he was too deep in it to admit he was in love with someone else. Wendy made up at east forty percent of his entire personality. Maybe it wasn't so great being Colorado's precious sweetheart after all.

Craig had never really thought it was.

"Stan's kind of a jerk." He said carelessly, sitting down at the table and reaching for the menu. Bebe threw up her hands and rolled her eyes.

"Yes! Thank you! I've been saying that for _years_. I keep telling Wendy she would be better of with token or Kyle. Token is hotter and he's rich. Kyle is super smart and so much more compatible with her its ridiculous."

"Kyle wouldn't go for her. Everyone knows he's about as sexually motivated as this napkin. If the future of mankind depended on him fucking someone, we would be extinct in about one month."

Bebe's jaw dropped.

"Really?"

"Really."

Craig neglected to tell Bebe that Eric Cartman had had his eye on Wendy since sixth grade anyway. And like hell he was going to loose her to his most prized enemy.

He was glad that at least his friend group was not so complicated. Clyde was a bit of a dumbass, and when Jimmy hung around with them craig kind of wanted to cram napkins in his ears to avoid listening to him make terrible, terrible jokes all the fucking time. But other than that things were straightforward.

"Well, I also suggested she should try having sex with Kenny just once. He was the best, I think. And I've slept with a lot of guys."

Craig tried not to acknowledge that thinking about Kenny fucking an incredible number of people was making him self conscious and embarrassed.

"Mostly on dates you don't admit that kind of thing."

Bebe stuck her nose in the air.

"I can sleep with whoever I want however much I want."

Craig wasn't going to argue. He picked his meal off the menu (Fried rice with chicken, and that was only half because he thought it was hilarious how the guy behind the counter repeated the words in his inauthentic accent) and took Bebe's order as well. After placing it, he returned to the table and it was almost like she hadn't stopped talking for five seconds.

"So anyway. You don't know any single guys who might be interested in taking Wendy out sometime?"

"Nope. My friends are all sluts."

"Don't use that word."

"Sorry. My friends are all remorseless womanisers. Except Clyde."

"Oh yeah? How is Clyde?" Her expression shifted to one of smugness, and it was actually kind of amusing the way she _knew_ she had the guy pinched between her neatly manicured fingers.

"Same as always. Dumb as a mud fence. Obsessed with making you fall in love with him."

"He's actually a kind of sweet guy." She mused, playing with a curl of her hair. "It's a shame he's so average looking."

A strange thing to say, considering she was currently on a lunch date with Craig Tucker, the epitome of inoffensive averageness in the twenty first century.

"By average, you mean ugly." He poured himself a glass of water from the clear glass jug that had been standing on the table when they arrived. Around them, the restaurant wasn't doing too badly. There were a couple of Mongolians in the far booth, and a group of tweenagers (one of whom Craig was sure was Ike Broflovski) having a smorgasbord on the other side of the room. The fryers were going and the whole place smelled kind of like soy sauce and beef noodles. He took a mouthful of his drink.

"Well, not _ugly_. Just not hot. Gosh, it's a shame. I wish there was some way to rearrange qualities in a group of guys in order to refine them. If I could put Clyde's mind and Stan's romanticism in a body that looked like Kenny's or the Tweak boy in my history class, I would never need another man again."

Craig choked on his mouthful of water, and when he spit on the table Bebe gave him the kind of look you give a dog who just took a shit on the carpet in front of you.

"… Are you okay?"

"Fine! I'm fine."

His eyes were watering, and he was coughing like a two-hundred-year-old pack-a-day smoker. There as water all over the table, and Bebe's sundress had a few small spatters on the front. Other than that, he was A-ok.

"Sorry, but I thought you said that Tweek Tweak was attractive."

"He is." She deadpanned, and one perfectly sculpted eyebrow lifted as she watched him mop up his chin and the table in front of him. "In a character sort of way. I'm sorry, am I making you jealous by talking about other men?"

"No, no no no that definitely isn't it." Craig shook his head, and Bebe narrowed her eyes.

"Good. I quite like you Craig. You know that right? I always thought you were precious and brooding."

Craig cringed, but tried to look somewhat touched by this revelation. He didn't have the heart to tell her that actually, he was just seriously apathetic and kind of a dick.

"Okay? That's cool. I always thought…"

_You had great tits._

"You were really smart. And funny?"

This seemed to please her, because she smiled.

"Excellent! We could make this work Craig. We really could."

Craig wasn't so sure about that.

…

"You uh, see that?" Tweek pointed into the mug and Craig peered over his shoulder, seeing the blobby shapes the black tea leaves had left in the cup but not seeing the pictures that apparently would tell him his future. "What does that look like to you?"

"By the handle?" Craig asks, and Tweek hummed.

"It looks like a dick."

"…. Do you think?" Tweek turned the cup upside down and suddenly, the dick became a tree, and Craig wasn't so sure any more. "It uh, could be a fish? Maybe there's dicks in your future?"

"This is bullshit. Who did you say taught you this?"

"I didn't." Tweek stood up straight and scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. He set the cup on the counter, and Craig wished he would look at his face when he talked instead of gazing at the floor or his shoes of the space to the left of Craig's head.

"So who did?"

"This nurse at the hospital She was a little crazy but I liked her. Mm…" he sighed and Craig thought that of ever there was a case of the pot calling the kettle dirty ass, this was it. "I never got the hang of it."

"… No shit."

He looked embarrassed, and a lot like he regretted even mentioning that he could look at Craig's tea leaves and maybe give him insight into his future endeavours, and in an effort to avoid further discussion he turned away and resumed unloading the dishwasher with gusto. Craig leant on the bench and watched him, and at the back of his mind he tried to see him through Bebe's eyes.

He had a pretty good ass, Craig decided. And nice arms. And he knew that because Tweek had neglected to wear a button up shirt today, instead opting for a t-shirt that said _Lizard King_ and a windbreaker which he had discarded on top of the muffin cabinet while he was working. He seemed well rested as well tonight. The shadows under his eyes were not so dense and he had only drunk half a coffee since Craig had been there. Maybe his parents had upped his medication dosage or something. Maybe he had gotten his dick sucked the night before. Craig thought back to Tweek's facebook profile and the relationship status there, and a little question of doubt rose to the top of his mind. Maybe it was an ex who gave him the book, he told himself. Or maybe they weren't in that kind of relationship at all. Were inpatients even _allowed_ to have that kind of thing between them? Why did Craig care so much about whether or not Tweek had any kind of a dating history?

Maybe it was because Tweek was such a fascinating person. One of surprises and many facets, not at all like the cardboard cut out crazy Craig had thought he was a few weeks prior. Maybe Craig was just bored with this job, and needed something to distract him from the darkness and the tedium that came with working graveyard shifts.

Yeah, that had to be it.

"You know, if you _really_ want to know something about your future, I can tell you it?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Go on then."

Tweek stood up and began reloading the dishwasher, first and foremost with Craig's tea leaf covered cup. He hooked a lock of hair behind his ear and closed the dishwasher door.

"You'll be handling urinal cakes."

It took Craig a moment to realise that he was implying Craig go and swap out the nearly finished urinal cakes in the men's room urinals for fresh ones.

"… Hilarious."

"I'm not kidding, man. I don't want to do it.."

"Who says you're the boss of me?"

"Whose name is on the sign?" He pointed to the name on his apron. Tweek bros. Not Craig Bros. Craig walked right into that one. "Besides, it's a really quick job?"

He sounded a little bit earnest, and Craig felt the most reluctant sensation at the corners of his lips. A smile, maybe? No, a smirk. Either way, it was _very_ unbecoming and detracted from the emphasis he was trying to place on his irritation.

"Fine."

Tweek looked so relieved, and he gave Craig what would later be remembered as the first 100% genuine smile he had delivered as he hunted for the maintenance closet keys on the counter shelf.

"Stuffs in the closet." He told him, passing the keys over with hands that shook ever so slightly. "I'll be out the front when you get back."

Craig was going to ask him what he would be doing out there, but decided he would find out when he returned anyway so what did it matter. The urinal cake changing was grim but it was over fast, and after a thorough hand washing Craig remerged feeling a new respect for every bathroom attendant he had ever ignore in the past and was likely to continue ignoring in the future. As promised, Tweek was not in his usual place behind the counter– he was standing outside on the pavement and gazing somewhat absently at the stars. Summer in Colorado brought the stars out vividly, the mountain line cut the horizon and even the lamps along the street couldn't dim the celestial glittering of a million galactic friends. Puzzled, but not deterred, Craig wandered toward the front of the shop and swung open the door. Tweek turned to look at him when he did so, and thin wisps of smoke leaked out of the corners of his mouth when he asked

"Finished?"

"… Yeah." Craig noticed he was holding what looked like a hand rolled cigarette, and suspiciously he shuffled forward to get a closer look. "Is this why you wanted to come outside? I didn't know you smoked?"

"Well I do." He held the cigarette strangely, between the joints of his second and middle finger, and when he drew on it his chest trembled, just a little bit. "Nn… You didn't have to come out by the way, I was just telling you where I would be. In case you wondered."

Craig looked around, realised he was outside on the dark street he had always regarded with a distinct sense of discomfort from inside the shop, and instantly shrugged to look cool in front of someone he never would have suspected he would want to look cool for. It was a little less scary when the fluorescent lights in the store weren't bleaching his corneas, and the movements of the breeze through dense bushes was a enchanting in the way HD TV was enchanting. There was a whole new dimension in it, not nearly as secretive and threatening as the whispering shivering that the bushes and treetops seemed to be from behind glass.

"It's cool."

Craig was more interested in Tweek, and the glowing embers which hung off the end of his cigarette, and it didn't make sense because Tweek never smelled like smoke, and he was such a nervous type it seemed like he would be too worried about things like throat cancer or emphysema to risk the little high that nicotine could bring. Was there a catch? Was he smoking Pot or crack or something and Craig was just naive enough to believe that it was a regular rolled cigarette?

"That's tobacco right?" he asked, and Tweek sighed as though he was sick of being asked questions about what kind of substances he was putting into his body, which he probably was.

"Of course it is."

"How come I've never seen you smoke before?"

"When have you ever paid this much attention to me before?" He said, tapping ash off the end of his cigarette and keeping his eyes fixed upwards, on the milky spill of stars in the sky. "We catch the same bus from school and I stand there at the stop smoking almost every day. You never notice. It's okay though, it freaks me out when people stare at me…"

Craig would have frowned, but to be honest that was probably right. He paid little to no attention to _anyone_ when he was waiting for the bus, let alone a skinny wraith of a boy who shied away from human contact and spouted nonsense about dwarves and gnomes whenever anyone even tried to start a conversation with him. He felt a little bad for it, but also somewhat uneasy, because he had forgotten again that this guy and that guy were in fact the same person. When Tweek was talking fluently and calmly like this, in a soft voice which sounded much more like his dads creamy simper, he very nearly might have passed as someone average. Someone unremarkable. How could he present so well in _this_ scenario and fall completely apart in others, Craig wasn't sure he would ever know, and it was disarming and unwelcome to see. Humanising someone who had previously been little more than amusement to him was a process painful for the conscience and the pride.

"I guess if you have to have a vice this is better than some."

"Well, I don't know. Remember when it was cool in fourth grade to drink cough medicine? I've never had a throat infection since."

Craig is almost certain he is making a particularly dry joke. But it doesn't feel appropriate to laugh. Instead he tightens his jaw and pushes his hands into the pockets of his jeans under his apron.

"I don't think those two things are related."

"Well I'm not complaining. I hate getting sick. My mind always jumps to the worst case scenario." Tweek exhaled, and a ghost of smoke escaped his lips like he was breathing his soul away on the night air. He looked ethereal, backlit by the storefront and illuminated by the stars, and slightly misshapen. Like his body was put together differently to Craig's and yet so similarly it was almost not noticeable. He had never looked more like that manic kid in elementary school and yet he had also never looked so different.

"… You've changed a lot." Craig said.

The light wind picked up, and scuffed a few bits of litter down the gutters of the darkened streets. Tweek threw the dead butt of his cigarette into the gutter and shook his head. The last of the thin gauze of smoke coming out from between his lips smelt really unsanitary- like the unrinal cakes Craig had just been replacing.

"No. I don't think so? I think rehab helped. And therapy."

"I thought your parents took you to a hypnotist."

"They did. But they tried everything else too. Mostly to get me off… you know."

Craig did know. It kind of hung in the air for a moment unspoken, and Craig thought about what Tweek had been like those weeks before he left. Those weeks he had been getting over the addiction his parents had thrust upon him through reckless coffee additives and poor parenting. It was during those weeks that he had truly isolated everyone around him - There had been chaos and drama, and Craig hadn't been directly involved but then again no one had really. The whole battle had been one between Tweek and his own head, and Craig would never forget the time he sat there in the back of class one day queasy because he had just watched Tweek try to peel his fingernails off with the broken end of a bic biro pen.

Now he was thinking about it his skin was goose pimpled, and he was starting to remember why it was he had _really_ decided to go along with his other friends when they ostracised him.

Tweek could be scary sometimes. He had _terrified _Craig, many years ago. And Tweek, of indecipherable thoughts and incomprehensible mind, was terrifying him right now too.


	7. Chapter 7

It was funny, when Craig wasn't working nowadays, he struggled to find himself all that much to do.

Days he had shifts, he would get up late and have maybe five hours to eat and shower and figure out a movie to watch or a short game to play, but the motivation to sit down and actually try to deal with his temperamental laptop long enough to whittle hours away like he used to disappeared, because he knew that however much effort he put into getting the next level to load or rebooting when the damned thing overheated he would have to be on his way out of the house soon and abandon it in the end. On the days he _didn't_ have to go to work, he found himself bored and impatient with his laptop once again except now he didn't have an excuse to put off logging on and making an attempt to level up any of his characters. Instead, he found himself in the kitchen making _coffee_, of all things, and the instant stuff his mum drunk was dirty tasting and nasty compared to the sweet and creamy caramel lattes Tweek could conjure up and so often he found himself wishing he could just go by work and pick up a beverage.

And then he realised that there was nothing stopping him except his sense of pride and the fear that someone important might see him doing so, and after tipping the instant coffee down the sink he retired to his room in shame with a can of coke and thought maybe today would be the day he cleaned out his wardrobe packed with children's toys and pilfered playboys with the Bunnys cut out. Maybe today would be the day he dusted, or wrote a letter to his grandmother, or re-arranged his furniture so that the head of his bed wasn't against the wall he shared with his sister on the other side.

In the end he locked his door, woke up his computer _(come on, please work you sonovaotch)_ and decided he would have a go at masturbating. Just for a change.

Craig was a recovering chronic masturbator.

Fortunately for him, this knowledge was as yet known only to himself, and as much of a source of embarrassment it _would_ be for anyone to find out about it he didn't think his jacking off habits were any more unusual than those of most other teenaged boys. Early puberty had brought a lot of problems for Craig, beyond just an explosion in height and pimples around age eleven that is, and he suspected he was probably one of the first guys in his peer group to realise that rubbing his dick would eventually result in temporary relief from all the anxieties and fears which came with hair in new places and a voice which had always sounded abrasive but now sounded like a farting duck in b flat. He was no Alexander Portnoy, but by age fifteen he had found himself carrying a small packet of wet-wipes at all times. The fact that now he could get himself off only three or four times a week and only in the privacy of his own bedroom was a great triumph and relief to him; There was nothing worse than the feeling of ejaculating in a bathroom stall at the mall or in between classes at school, except maybe that one time his sister had banged on the wall half way through and told him to shut the hell up.

She had thought he was crying. Oh, what a joke.

In any case, as a slightly older slightly less unstable version of himself Craig found that most of his frustrations in life could still easily be channelled into beating the meat, but there was a sort of comfort in the process now which seemed a million years removed from the guilty, fast way he used to finish himself of a few years previously. His fantasies were his own and they were soothing in times of sadness and ennui – two things which haunted the back of his mind when moodiness and boredom did not. Maybe they were simply truer forms of the same feelings which filled him up on a daily basis, He wouldn't know. What he did know was that he was thinking about how he wished he could just text someone, have a conversation, or maybe enjoy a two person game of something like checkers or cards instead of passing his time by masturbating as he shucked his jeans and made himself comfortable on his skinny single bed. He had a bookmark folder of videos he had planned to watch, and he didn't have any trouble finding something appropriate. The video was really just a prop anyway; he never _really_ concentrated on the people in the videos so much as he allowed himself to project the identities of other people on them. Sometimes himself. Sometimes people he found particularly appealing or attractive. By 'people' he of course meant 'person'.

His computer shut down fifteen minutes in, but he was a little beyond the point of caring. Craig lay on his bed with his legs bent and spread, but his knees leaned in toward one anther as though it might hide the vulnerable places between them he was touching. His eyes were open and fixed on the ceiling as he concentrated, but he wasn't concentrating on how sexy the video had been any more because somehow, he had started thinking about something else which made him feel kind of empty and frustrated and so his best solution had been to try something he had always thought about, but never done. Usually Craig had few qualms with the nature of his embodiment, but other times being_ in_ himself, aware of himself and his breathing and the functions which defined a living form, made life troublesome. The hand stroking his erection was slow and ineffective, and the fingers sliding underneath, toward the place he had only ever dared to explore in his daydreams, had frozen. His heart was hammering and a cold sweat broke on his chest and back. He wanted it, but he couldn't do it. He wanted it so fucking bad.

He gave up in the end. The struggle was far too great, and his fear that if he did, he wouldn't be able to look at himself in the mirror again made him clammy and cold.

He neglected to finish even over the knuckles of his hand, and in annoyance rolled onto his stomach, his underwear still bunched around the ankle of his left leg and the dying sunlight flooding the corners of his small attic room.

…

He wasn't sure why he did it.

He wasn't sure at all because as far as he was concerned him and Tweek were still very much on friendly professional terms only, and even though his opinion of the guy had softened over the past three weeks he wasn't convinced that they could ever really be more than late night acquaintances. Tweek still creped him out sometimes, and Craig was still an average guy with plans to keep his head down and his ambitions low – these plans would definitely in no way accommodate an eccentric barista and his wiles. All the same, somehow or another, he found himself digging his phone out of his pocket on a Tuesday afternoon filled with the burning need to have a conversation with someone, and in the dissatisfied way that was quite particular to Craig he made his way through A to S of his contacts without seeing _anyone_ he wanted to speak to. Everyone was either stupid, boring, annoying, or a combination of all three, and it wasn't until he saw Tweek's name he hesitated and sat down at the kitchen table to stare at it for a moment. To wonder.

What would Tweek have to say today? He almost always had something weird to say if Craig asked, and maybe that was what made him so much more _interesting_ than anyone else. Craig could _never_ guess what he was thinking, what might come out of his mouth next. Would it be an instruction, or an out loud musing about something that seemed normal but may in fact have had slightly unreal connotations? Craig didn't know anything about him besides the fact that he loved coffee and he read quickly. Tweek never talked about movies he watched, people he knew, things he liked to do or even the things he hated. Crag could guess a few things based on their past history and the way he behaved when they were at work, but otherwise there was nothing nothing, and subsequent checks of his facebook had been no more lucrative than the first one. He smoked, that was something Craig supposed, but what he experienced when he did so, what he thought about when he was smoking or how he felt in the aftermath were all mysteries. He was just one _big_ mystery, with a fascinating face and a nervous manner, and he was so goddamned defensive a lot of the time that Craig supposed he shouldn't be _surprised_ how little he knew about the guy. Or maybe it was his fault, for being a particularly unsociable person. Maybe it was about time he… you know. Made an effort.

Craig sighed and asked himself what could be the worst that happened. Tweek got uncomfortable and didn't reply. That's his loss considering Craig was making a conscious attempt to be friendly now, not just to be civil.

He opened SMS and keyed a brief text.

_Hey, whats up?_

It wasn't until he sent it and let himself slump down onto the table that he asked himself what the fuck he was thinking.

He sat up completely erect and clapped his hand against his cheek in exasperation. A quick glance at the clock on the oven told him that it was eight pm. Eight pm and he was already so burned out he was making stupid mistakes.

What if Tweek thought he _liked_ him? What if Tweek was one of those weird guys who just kind of latched on to anyone who showed him decent kindness, and Craig was getting himself into some kind of fatal attraction situation whereby he would come home only to find Donnie boiling on the stovetop with carrots and leeks. The idea made him distinctly sick, and when his cellphone vibrated on the tabletop he looked at it as though it was the police calling, and he had several thousand dollars worth of stolen televisions in his closet.

Oh god.

He held his phone at arms length when he checked the message, and found he couldn't read the letters on the screen. From closer proximity, he could see they said

_Youre not working tonight._

He groaned softly and realised he was in far too deep now to just back out.

_I know. im bored as hell so I thought id see what youre doing_

He figured he would probably be at work, making coffee and scrubbing surfaces as though his life depended on maintaining cleanliness.

_Oh. Nothing?_

_Liar_. Craig text him back, and found the corners of his lips turning upward wryly because of course Tweek wouldn't give up his secrets that easily. _You have to be doing something. Help a dude out. Im sitting in my kitchen watching the moths fly into the lightbulb._

He would have liked to say he was doing something cool, like buying a motorbike or dining with pinup models at the local Italian restaurant, but that would make _him_ the liar, and Tweek wasn't stupid enough to fall for that.

_… __well if you really want to know? im just sitting in my room reading._

_What are you reading?_

There was something distinctly satisfactory about finally asking. Even if it took him fifteen minutes to respond.

_The Doors of Perception/Heaven and Hell_

Craig didn't know what the fuck that was.

_I see._

He gave up trying to make conversation, and decided he would just talk to Tweek at some later point in the week when they were both on shift.

…

It was Jimmy who suggested it, and Timmy who enthusiastically Agreed, and Kyle Broflovski (Who was with them because he and Token were supposed to be working on a pols class assignment together – what a joke) who rolled his eyes and said

"Can we _please_ just go somewhere so I can go to the bathroom," and started leading them all in the direction of Tweek Bros coffee despite Caig's insisting they go elsewhere.

"Uh, Guys can we not? We could go to the mall and go to Harbucks instead?"

"Princess needs to pee now apparently." Clyde told him, nodding in Kyle's general direction. Clyde really didn't like Kyle that much. Craig had no idea why.

"Let him go then! He and Token shouldn't have come."

"Token is scouting for a new girlfriend. He can't do that studying with Kyle."

"Fuck."

Before them, Tweek bros coffee loomed, and he hoped against hope that Tweek wouldn't be there. Maybe he had gone home to sleep for once? And maybe if he pulled his hat low and tried to stay at the back of the crowd, he could slip in unnoticed with the others.

The familiar sound of Tweek's music, wavering over the speakers, filled Craig's head, and the shop was astonishingly busy – Mister Tweek was behind the counter, and for a moment Craig felt sweet relief because if mister tweak was here it was reasonable to assume that Tweek was not, but then he saw a blonde head bobbing around at the back of the shop cleaning tables and his guts clenched. He almost turned around and split. He also almost shat himself because holy fuck, what if he sees him! What if he tries to _talk to him_ in front of his friends?!

Tweek was a tolerable guy, but Craig had himself a comfortable little rut in his current social position. He didn't want that disrupted any more than Kyle wanted Token to stop him on his way to the bathroom.

"What do you want to drink?"

"Orange juice? I don't care! Hold this." He shoved his messenger bag into Timmy's lap and received a loud 'Timmy!' in response. "I'll be back."

He ducked between two tables and past the sofa Craig and Tweek had spent many late nights sitting on and talking.

The group migrated to the large booth beside the window, and Craig was the first to dive in, picking up a menu and holding it up in front of his face in case Tweek looked over and saw the group arranging themselves in there. It would look too goddamned suspicious if he ran out now. His only option was to sit and wait and hope the whole ordeal would be other soon enough.

Clyde, Token and Jimmy Slid in next to him. Timmy stayed where he was, clutching Kyle's bag and looking excitedly around the crowded store.

God, that fucking music. Tweek was playing that album by the guy who couldn't sing for shit. Craig hated the way he had actually started to enjoy the sound of his voice by the third or fourth time he heard it, and made a point from then on to point out to Tweek how much he loathed it. Tweek always smiled at him as if he knew he was a dirty fibber.

"What do I want?" Token asked himself quietly.

"M-Muh-may I suggest the Bahhh… The Brazilian roast? It's quite mild."

"No way, he should get this." Clyde pointed to Tweek's personal favourite beverage. The americano. Size humongeous.

Craig decided he wouldn't get anything, just in case he drew attention to himself.

They consolidated their orders and Token went up to collect them. In the end, everyone just agreed on a straight up jug of standard and whatever quiches Token was generous to buy them from the front window. Kyle got back before Token did, looking somewhat pissed off about something, and as he sat down he pulled off his hat and dropped it carelessly on the table.

'What's up your ass?" Clyde asked.

"Some asshole threw the urinal cake on the floor and I slid on it on my way out the door." He shook out his hair, and he definitely had a lot of it to shake around. It was bright auburn and almost certain to attract Tweek's attention because for some reason, when Kyle took his hat off, everyone in the vicinity turned to stare at him.

Craig groaned against his will. He hated that his first instinct upon hearing this was to go and clean it.

He sunk low in his seat and tried to look invisible.

…

"I thought your parents were taking you to Paris?"

Token shrugged, and Clyde sighed as if he cared that he wouldn't be getting a fridge magnet that says 'my friend went to the Eiffel tower and all I got was this crappy souvenir'.

"Not now. Now I'm having a party. It's in two weeks and everyone goes stag.

"Wuh-what about C-Craig? He and Bebe are d-da-da… he and Bebe are dating."

"No we aren't!" Craig snapped at Jimmy, the first time he had said anything since sitting down. "We aren't dating."

"Stan said Bebe told Wendy that you were."

"Shut up _Kyle_. You and Stan are dating."

Kyle went a furious shade of magenta, and returned his attention to his coffee.

"… Right. So anyway. My party?" Token seemed unhappy to be interrupted, but that was fine with Craig. It meant everyone would go back to listening to him, and Craig could return to his state of nervous thinking.

_Please don't let him see me. Please don't let him see me. Please oh please oh please._

He was starting to see similarities between himself and the object of his anxiety. What would happen if Tweek did spot him and try to start up a conversation? Oh, nothing much. Everyone would make fun of him for a million years. He would become an utter joke, and have to convert to a life of hermitage. And then he would be stuck only ever talking to his guinea pigs for the rest of his life.

He fiddled uncomfortably with the pockets of his cargo shorts and gazed down at the edge of the table in front of him. The coffee they had brought before was dwindling, and he didn't want to get his hopes up that their visit was nearly over, but they had been forty minutes and Tweek had drifted past three or four times already without noticing them sitting there. Maybe he was off the hook?

"Craig can date whoever he wants, but he's coming to my place alone. Everyone is. Even Kenny. Someone pass the message on to Kenny by the way."

He poured the last of the coffee jug into his cup and added two packets of coffee crystals. Clyde nodded seriously and Craig heaved a sigh. Kyle was texting, and Craig was pretty sure he could guess who it was. The excited chatter of earlier, mostly about new video game releases and the nature of that new girlfriend Jimmy was currently in the process of seducing, had faded. It all seemed as though this social even was wrapping up.

"Refill anyone?"

Craig practically jumped out of his skin when out of nowhere, Tweek's voice breezed, and he realised when he snapped his head up to stare at him that it was too late – Tweek had seen him and there was no way in hell he could dive under the table without drawing attention to himself.

The boy smiled tightly at them, and the look was as cold as the coffee jug he held was hot. His hair was pinned off his forehead and there were new band aids on his fingers as well as one on the side of his neck. Craig noticed that one of his apron ties were loose, but he didn't want to say anything even though he really felt he should. He swallowed the lump in his throat and pulled self-consciously on the earflaps of his hat.

"Uh, sure yeah." Clyde wiggled his eyebrows mockingly and held out his cup. Kyle shot him a dirty look and pushed his mug forward too.

"Yes. Thanks, Tweek."

"Welcome, Kyle."

Craig would have been amused, that he purposefully avoided filling Clyde's cup, if he hadn't been so goddamned horrified about this whole situation.

"If you, uh, want anything else, let me know. Hey Craig."

Craig's stomach plummeted and he let his eyes close in irritation when Tweek addressed him. The whole table fell painfully silent, and he was so certain that everyone was looking at him when he opened his eyes that he had to absolutely galvanise his expression of indifference despite the fact that his pulse was racing and his stomach was turning over like a car engine on a cold day. Tweek was peering at him over the jug of coffee, and he looked just the same as he did at night except now he was in the sunlight and his skin was like the thin pale silk of those handkerchiefs his grandmother used to tuck in her sleeve, and his jaw had a nice shape that might not have looked out of place on a Calvin Klein poster but he was shaking, and his voice was cracking like his balls had yet to drop, and Craig blinked at him like he didn't know why the fuck he was talking to him and said

"Uh, hi?"

The change of expression which passed over Tweek's face was incredible. There were at least twenty different ones all within the space of one second and most simply they could be described as all falling somewhere on the scale of shock, embarrassment, fury and then despair, and it was in that order that his face transformed from semi-composure to complete misery and he stood up ramrod straight, the jug of coffee held rigidly in his hands. Clyde snorted and Token hid his smile discreetly behind his hand.

Craig felt like he did all those times he had accidentally squashed Mojo a little bit with his leg. But he couldn't rush to apologise and curse himself out for this one, oh no, because that would mean loosing face and there was no way in _hell_ he could do that in front of his friends. And Kyle.

Instead he just watched as Tweek walked away, and when everyone stopped giggling long enough to ask him what _that_ was all about he said "I have no fucking idea."

No one noticed that Craig didn't flip him off when he stalked back behind the counter. Something he almost certainly would have done, if Tweek really was a stranger.

No one noticed the filthy, hurt looks Tweek was sending him across the store either. And that was probably the more fortunate thing.


End file.
